Club Brugge vs Man Utd

Club Brugge vs Man Utd

0-4 (1-7 Agg)

Wed 26th August - 7:45pm

Champions League Qualifier: 2nd Leg

I decided to do this blog because Man Utd are one of my biggest passions in life and I really enjoy a good ol' natter and debate about it. Not just United, I intend to talk about all things United as well as some of the big talking points that come up over the season ahead. So feel free to leave a comment and I would love it if people actually enjoyed these things, so follow me to hear more about football but mainly United's quest to knock Jose Mourinho, Manuel Pellegrini & Arsene Wenger off their perch. Before you say what about Liverpool....lets be honest, you can't count them as serious contenders while Brendan 'we showed great character' Rodgers is in charge :) Hope you enjoy....

So, tonight was the night that Wayne Rooney would return from his so called goal drought and lets be honest, we have come to expect quite a lot from this guy. Now, if we look back over the last 10/11 years, you will see that his career has been these bursts of form. He is either in a rich vein of form or he is in a goal drought. Sir Alex has said it in many a press conference. I knew as soon as he got one he would probably score 2 or 3 and then go on a goal scoring run. All this is typical, as it was only 2 days ago that I decided to use my wildcard and take him out of my fantasy football team. Oh well!

In other news, Louis Van Gaal decided that he would bring Ander Herrera back into the fray. If im honest, I am not sure why he hasn't been picked to start any of the matches so far this season because it was plain to see that he was one of our best players in the second half of last season. And lo and behold he came back and scored a great goal and also set up a brilliantly worked goal for Wazza too. Now, he didn't start the game very well. He lost possession on more than one occasion and nearly gave them a goal that would certainly have changed the tie. He then went into the book after a reckless challenge and I thought, if LVG was going to haul someone off at half time, it was going to be him. Instead he brought on Bastian Schweinsteiger for Januzaj and moved Herrera into a more advanced role, almost a number 10. This worked wonders as he was able to move more freely and make more of an impact on the play. 

The one thing that continues to confuse me is the way LVG hasn't rotated the squad yet. He has used the same team bar maybe one or two players for every game so far. This baffles me because you have players like Young, who played brilliantly last season, and Chicharito, who also played very well for Real Madrid in the second half of the season, who aren't getting very much game time, never mind the players who haven't even made the subs bench like James Wilson and Marcos Rojo. Now, how long do we think these players are going to stay planted to the dugout, before they start to either lose confidence, or lose interest in playing for the club. Then, when we have made it into the latter stages of a few competitions and we are fighting for the title in April/May, we have players who are knackered because they have played so many minutes at the beginning of the season, or we have players who haven't played in a while and haven't got their touch or they have completely lost confidence because they don't feel like they have a manager who believes in them. I just feel that LVG could have used players like Chicharito, Young, Fellaini, Schweinsteiger, Valencia, Rojo, Evans and they would be gaining fitness as well as the confidence of playing in a Champions League match because lets be honest, we were 3-1 up and they really weren't the best team we are going to come up against in the near future. Just felt a little tinkering would have gone a long way and would prevent it coming back to bite us in the backside later on in the season. Sir Alex was a master of rotating his squad and I thought tonight was a good opportunity to use a couple more players that may not get into the starting 11 against most of the premier league opposition we are going to be coming up against.

Anyway, I am glad we went on to win 4-0 on the night and 7-1 on aggregate as we are finally able to say that we are back in the champions league. 

Today is the draw for the group stages, and I am looking forward to seeing who we will be up against for the next few months. Just keeping my fingers crossed that we avoid teams like Barca, Bayern, Juventus and basically anywhere far away like Ukraine or Russia as you don't really want to be travelling back from Russia on a Wednesday evening when you have a match vs Liverpool at 12:45 on Saturday lunchtime. 

Thanks for reading!

Over & Out!

Match Report - Marks Out of Ten

Starting Eleven

Romero                     6
Darmian                    8
Smalling                    8
Blind                         7
Shaw                        8
Carrick                     7
Herrera                    7
Januzaj                    6
Mata                        7
Memphis                 8
Rooney                   9

Subs

Schweinsteiger       8
Young                     7
Chicharito               6