United v Benfica

come on people! 24 hours on and not a mention of last nights important game v Benfica!!!!

After going a goal down, my initial reaction was "well, we either now spark, or fail dismally" - luckily we sparked and thanks to Vidic, Giggs and Saha, we are now in the knockouts against either Real Madrid, Lille or Porto.

Once again Fergie's formation dancing comes up for questioning. Why does he persist in Carlos' favoured 4-3-2-1 formation, surrendering midfield to the opposition; givin their defenders an "easy life"?

We are always the strongest at 4-4-2 and any of the above teams mentioned in the next round will give us an exceptionally hard time if Fergie messes up again!!

Every single game is tough now, no babies left in this competition now. As I said we face either Porto, Real or Lille in the next round. It would be nice to have Real, and win home and away, they are quite weak compared with other Real teams. But I suspect we will get dumped with Porto, again.

Re: the formations, although I haven't seen the match itself - I've been told that the only time we did look threatening was when we reverted to 4-4-2 in the second half. If there's anything to be learnt from the mistakes of the past, it's that Sir ALex just can't stop tinkering. 4-4-2 is what we play best. A distant second might be 4-3-1-2 (or extended 4-3-3 as I call it).

just noticed in the tube video's in the other thread, the shirt pulling by Benfica!!!! I am surprised we had any on when we came off!!!