Manchester United vs Chelsea - Champions League Final

1

Tough one to call. I presume ManU will play Park again, as they’ve done in recent big games, and leave out either Hargreaves or Tevez.

Van der Sar;
Brown; Ferdinand; Vidic; Evra;
Carrick; Scholes; Park/Hargreaves;
Ronaldo; Rooney; Tevez/Park;

Chelsea will be 4-3-3 as usual. I presume he’ll have Essien right back as he seems loathe to leave out one of Ballack, Lampard or Makelele in CL games. Then it’s just a choice of who plays wide between Kalou, Malouda and whoever.

Cech;
Essien; Carvalho; Terry; Cole;
Ballack; Makelele; Lampard;
Cole; Drogba; Kalou/Malouda/Some other cooont.

Discuss.

2

No offence Bandage, but with Thursday fast approaching, no other game matters this week

3

Well, obviously I don’t give a flying fook about this game but I’m merely trying to facilitate debate dancingtoddler.

4

Biggest club game ever and although I’ve no excuses for not going, I kind of “wish I was going” if that doesn’t sound too stupid.

Chelsea 2-1 I reckon, a repeat of the game at the Bridge a few weeks back, or at least a repeat of the scoreline if not the overall pattern of the game - example, I suppose Chelsea won’t come at United near as quickly as they did in the league game.

Couldn’t give a flying fook about Thursday although I guess it’s been funny to see Rangers collapse in the way they have.

Walter Smith has been rushed to hospital I see…

…suspected quadruple bypass.

5

The pitch is meant to be scheidt. They’ve laid a pitch over the usual artificial surface and it’s meant to be bobbly and rubbish. You’d think between uefa and the host stadium they could have arranged to have a good quality surface.

6

I will go with the following team

Van Der Sar

Brown
Vidic
Rio
Evra

Ronaldo
Carrick
Scholes
Hargreaves
Park

Rooney

Its tough on Tevez but I think in the league game a few weeks back the midfield area was Uniteds weak point. If Chelsea are going to play Essien, Lampard and Ballack in the centre then United will have to match them there if they have any hope of winning.

7

From F365. Utter scutter

The Bionic Man
One of Mediawatch’s biggest irritations (apart from that nasty rash in an area that really should not have a nasty rash) is the myth perpetrated by large sections of the English media that John Terry is an indestructible force of nature. An immortal man that would laugh in the face of Achilles, Superman and God. A hero without whom Chelsea would be utterly lost.

So you can imagine how irked we were this morning to open The Guardian and read the following words by their chief suck-up Dominic Fifield, under the bile-inducing headline ‘Bionic Man rises again to lead Moscow mission’:

'Welcome to the wonderful world of John Terry, Bionic Man. To consider how Chelsea would have fared in Moscow without their captain is to confront the unthinkable. The centre-half remains this team’s inspiration. His commitment and conviction set the tone as much as his suffocating defending.

‘Chelsea will need his brawn. Tomorrow is the biggest game in the club’s history. There have been times this season when, unsettled by the departure of Jose Mourinho in September, Chelsea have gasped in the challenge of catch-up.’

And it doesn’t end there. Martin Samuel in The Times takes a break from stroking his lifesize cut-out of Frank Lampard (imagine that behemoth in the corner of your bedroom) to scribble the following:

‘Just as comic-book heroes combine a day job with an alternate existence fighting evil, so Terry leads a double life as Chelsea captain and Mr Indestructible. He has been patched up, pieced together, pinned in place and rebuilt so many times that if he marched out at Stamford Bridge one day like the remodelled police officer Murphy in Robocop, it would hardly be a surprise.’

Dear Christ.

In the hope of putting this one to rest slightly, we offer the following information.

Chelsea lost six games in all competitions this season. Terry started all of them.

By way of comparison, he missed 24 games - including a win over Liverpool, two League Cup semi-finals and the Community Shield against Manchester United - and their record in those encounters reads: Won 19, Drawn 5, Lost 0.

How would they cope without him?

8

[quote=“Sledgehammer”]

Walter Smith has been rushed to hospital I see…

…suspected quadruple bypass.[/quote]

First person I ever knew to be rushed to hospital with a suspected bypass…

Did the arteries detach themselves from his leg or wherever and form around his heart so as to form an alternative means of getting blood from the heart to parts of the body?

I would imagine that would hurt and would cause someone to be rushed to hospital.

Damn arteries having a mind of their own again…

9

2 dodgy tackles from each team in their pre-game training sessions on the pitch.

Scholes had a silly, rash lunge at Tevez and Ugly Betty gave him the most filthy look when he got back up. None of them were wearing shinpads but Tevez escaped with a bruised and grazed shin.

Meanwhile, Makelele completely piled into Ashley Cole. It was way, way worse than Scholes’ challenge and Cashley’s apparently a doubt for the final now.

10

Ashley Cole has always done superb against Ronaldo so that would be a big loss for Chelsea if he was missing.

11

Ah that’s so Scholesy… he can’t tackle don’t you know…

But he is still one of the best midfielders in the world and a completely clean player who rash and dirty challenges are completely out of character for…

12

[quote=“farmerinthecity”]First person I ever knew to be rushed to hospital with a suspected bypass…

Did the arteries detach themselves from his leg or wherever and form around his heart so as to form an alternative means of getting blood from the heart to parts of the body?

I would imagine that would hurt and would cause someone to be rushed to hospital.

Damn arteries having a mind of their own again…[/quote]

Dragged that out way too far Farmer. First line on its own said it perfectly.

13

Yeah probably but still…

14

It’s just something to take on board and apply it to your next witticism.

15

Cheers Rocko - you are the King of Wit after all…

16

Surprised to hear tonight that Man United didn’t sell their full allocation of tickets. Lad was on Off the Ball defending it going on about visas and the price of Moscow and everything but visas are sorted with match tickets and while Moscow is dear United have been in 2 European Cup finals in the last 40 years, you think they’d be able to shift their full allocation of tickets.

17

I’m disgusted there’s tickets left. Can’t believe it. A few weeks ago United were saying all tickets were gone Flights from here are only about 500 return and a couple of my mates went. Freaked. I absolutely agree with you. 2nd final in ten years and we don’t sell our allocation, it’s crazy. Chelsea didn’t sell all theirs either by the way.

Anyway, starting to shit myself about this game a bit. I just hope Fergie has the balls to play his own team and not try to neutralise Chelsea’s. Our defense is good enough to cope with Chelsea, so I’d like to see us go with an attacking formation of

Van Der Saar

Brown
Vidic
Rio
Evra

Carrick
Scholes
Hargreaves

Tevez
Ronaldo
Rooney

I think Anderson is well able for a game like this but Ferguson just won’t play him.

Come on Man U

18

Surprised Chelsea didn’t sell theirs either - didn’t know that but I guess there’s feck all Chelsea fans in Ireland so it didn’t make the news here really. Hard to blame people because obviously loads of guys just can’t afford to go but there must be a whole rake of people who “just don’t fancy the USSR” or something. This next bit might sound like I’m an oul fella but there’s just so much soccer on these days and so much of it is on tv and it’s all so hyped out of reality that for lots of guys this is just the same as an FA Cup Final or something, just harder to get to.

Anyway ye have pretty much all picked the same team with just Park v Tevez as the only choice. What was the team United picked at Stamford Bridge recently?

19

Ferguson took a bit of a selection gamble in that recent game at Chelsea as it was between the two Barca games and he knew even if they lost they could still win the league by beating West Ham and Wigan, which is what happened as we all know. He rested Evra, Scholes and Ronaldo anyway. I know the likes of Silvestre, Nani and Fletcher were playing and none of them will be starting tonight. Pretty funny that neither team could sell their ticket allocation for a European Cup final.

20

Ah right, thought that might have been an indication of what he’d pick tonight because the fact that it’s a CL game shouldn’t make any difference to his selection in theory, but he’s been blinded by the need to change the team in Europe before.