Basel 2-1 Manchester United

Well we have been reading and watching reports of impending Eurogeddon for weeks now, well this was bad, but not that bad. I know at a similar stage of last season i said we had no chance of winning this competition and then we ended up getting to the final, but this season, we really had no chance. Only the easiest draw imaginable and and an unforseen upturn in form helped us get to Wembley last May. The qualifying group we were presented with was about as easy as we could have hoped for and we have still been knocked out. Imagine our present squad getting drawn against Barca or Real Madrid over two legs, it doesn't bear thinking about.
It still hurts of course, it hurts all the more because we know it is our just desserts, we just weren't good enough. We dominated possession, but though we did create chances, how did Rooney manage to hit the ball backwards from six yards out, we didn't create enough and never really looked really opening them up. There just isn't enough that extra bit of class that we should be showing against a decent, but nothing more Swiss outfit.
It's been said enough times and it's being said all ove again this morning that our midfield isn't good enough, this is only partly correct, we have good players there but not enough depth. Losing Cleverley for the first half of the season has turned out to be a disaster of the first order, but that tells you everything about the depth of talent available.
The suspension of Carrick probably didn't help last night, given the resources available i would have had Carrick holding and either Giggs or Jones playing further forward. But agains what does that say about the squad, a 19 year old learning the game and the 38 year old Giggs, who as Keane pointed out was probably our best player and who is unarguably still the most creative player at the club.
What can you read into Fergie's selction of both Jones and Park ahead of Fletcher last night, before his illness Fletcher was an automatic choice for all the big games. That obviously isn't the case any more. Whe Giggs does call it a day if we don't go into the market in a big way the future looks decidedly uncertain. We have promising youngsters, but none of them are certain to make it at United and none are ready yet anyway. This really has to be addressed sooner rather than later, but i wouldn't be putting my money on that happening.
Having said all that, the real reason we are not in the competition is because we have not defended well enough and almost every goal we have conceeded have been at best soft goals to give away and worst shots to our own foot. This is where there aren't really any easy answers.
We have all known that the squad has been regressing since the 2008-09 season, but we have been able to continue to challenge and win honours due to an experienced, consistent back four and goalie. During this period Ferdinand has seen time catch up on him and then this summer Van Der Sar finally did what most of us have been dreading, retiring. I have to be said i was suprised that Fergie went for such a young goalie in De Gea, but i have to say i have mostly liked what i have seen so far. But he is still learning the game and mistakes were bound to happen. Unfortunately they all seem to have happened in the champions league.
Losing Vidic early in the season and now again is just another in a long line of injuries that has seen Fergie have to chop and change to the point where it's a different back four everey match. This obviously isn't the best enviroment for our nucleus of potentially outstanding young defenders to be thrust into the team. And just to make matters worse Smalling, the Da Silva twins and even Evans have all suffered stop start seasons. There is only Jones who has had a consistent run and i think Fergie has done the right thing just fitting him into games wherever possible as he isn't really ready to be a permanent centre half just yet. All our success has generally been built on solid foundations and they have been conspicuos by there absence so far this season.
Last night ultimately came down to defensive blunders, we started the game pretty well it should be remembered. Then nine minutes into the game, after one unconvincing punch from De Gea, Smalling and Vidic clashed and more unconvincing work from De Gea with a strange attempted kick out saw Basel take the lead. Suddenly any nerves the home team may have hador ambiguity about their game plan went out of the window. They had something to hold onto and had seen that our backline was emminently breachable. United took time to regain their composure and Nani had one of those games that veered from brilliant to Rooney tearing his hair out at him. I thought Jones and Giggs played reasonably well in the first half. Rooney was decent but couldn't seem to finish, Nani got strongerand Smalling and Evra were overlapping well.
I suppose the big downside of the night performance wise was Young, what has happened there, he started the season so well. He never tried to take his man to the byeline once, hardly ever beat the first man with a cross and showed noconfidence in his own game at all. He isn't what can be labelled a youngster, we can't be waiting for him to become the finished article.
The longer the second half went on the more i was resigning myself to an early exit, but i didn't really see the second goal coming. Obviously Smalling was badly at fault, but i haven't heard anybody mention why he wasn't given a shout. Surely De Gea should have been screaming at him to clear it, he could see the man behind him. The wonder is that we actually managed to score one goal after that, because we were never going to get two. On the balance of play and chances created we probably deserved a draw, but if you defend like that, you get what you deserve.
So we can expect to have Thursday night, Channel 5 rammed down our throats for the rest of the season, not a pleasant experience. Hopefully somebody can get our own versio going with reference to the part the gimps have played in bringing us to this point.

As Paul Hayward writes, the Glazer family are in the spotlight, in the most balanced column on United's plight at this stage of this season. It's only a couple of days ago i was reading rumours that Fergie had been denied £10 million in the January transfer window. At the time i was in two minds about this news, if it was true of course, on the one hand of course our midfield need strengthening badly, but on the other hand i'm not sure to what extent £10 million would alleviate the deficiences we are suffering from. The one thing to be certain about is it was a disastrous day when those twats gained control of our club.

As Andy Mitten writes we are short on class and guile, i could hardly get my head around the fact that we got to the final last year. Of course the one time we played a team of any real ability, we were pulverised, and that 3-1 scoreline did not tell the true story of that game. In my view, even though i couldn't bring myself to sit down and watch it again, performance wise it was a bigger drubbing than the 6-1 this season.
Last season i thought that it was quite possible that the champions league final may be out of our reach for a few years, it's hard not to think that now.

Fergie wasn't happy with Keano's assesment of United's performance last night, especially his attack on United's youngsters. There is some history there, all right, i can't help feeling Keano enjoyed putting the boot in. Keano was right to lambast our performance as not good enough, i'm not sure the youngsters were the right players to be singled out for blame. I know the two defensive blunders came from that department, but overall they weren't particularly helped out by our so called experienced players.
Even so i can see where Fergie was coming from when he had a go at Keano's record in management, man management doesn't seem to be his forte does it. All this is abit like deja vu for me as i have just finished reading Daniel Taylor's book This is the one, which of course covers the last time we suffered elimination in the qualifying stages of the champions league and saw Keano leave at Christmas after his MUTV blow out and then Ruud leave in the summer. I can't help wonder who will be moved out in the summer and who if anybody will come in.
This is doing the rounds today all over the net, not Fergie's finest moment, after reading Taylor's book, i wonder who will be the brave soul that brings this up. It was obviously a fair question, even then, even more pertinent now.

Mark Ogden reckons that Fergie should use the Europa cup to blood the youngsters, it will help their football education and also the firstteam who will now have plenty of Sunday and Thursday games as their punishment. Fergie said that would not be ideal, he can say that again, Thusday night football, that just isn't a night for football. I can hardly remember us ever playing on a Thursday night, Southampton at home if my memory serves me right on the disastrous 91-92 title run in, is the last i can remember.
I would love Fergie to be able to do that, but it seems a bit fantasy football realms to me. I'm not really sure that many are are ready for the first team, full stop, and even if they were would the Glazer's allow it. That is a big unspoken here, it was rumoured that Gill got a dressing down when Bayern knocked us out in the quarter finals a couple of years ago, what will there reaction be to this. This can't be an ideal scenario to their proposed partial float in Singapore, providing that is still on the cards any thime soon.
Patrice Evra was honest enough to admit being embarrased to have been knocked out of the champions league and to admit he wasn't mad about playing in the Europa cup. What will any potential new recruits be reading into our failure to reach the knockout stages i wonder. As it is we can't compete with City in the transfer market, this hasn't exactly helped our cause in that regard either.