HJ

Interesting that when we didn't have the ball Ash went to defend right behind Gabby, like in 4-4-1-1.. Milner's going to the left all the time too. Good movement today and overall play is very nice but it's difficult to break Fulham down when they play their 0-0 away game. Fulham barely had one half chance all half.

romanian link but good quality

Milner, Young, Cuellar, Delph did well, Carew did his part. Thought Petrov was really poor and Heskey didn't do anything useful. MON should have changed things around when we were 2-0 up and they were getting back into the game, we had a decent bench too. Really disappointed with the result, not that we had a great to chance to go all the way and win the cup but at least a night like Ajax last season would have been great. I was hoping we can finally make at least the semis in a cup this season.. At least now we should be in a good position to give the domestic cups a real go.

Thought it was about who finishes top of the bottom 10 so voted for Spurs, oh well.

The future of the club hangs in balance and Ashley just stops all activity, amazing. I hope they get rid of him soon, the barcode fans have suffered enough now..

Xavi, easily. Iniesta is a great player but he didn't really do anything special in this match. I thought Iniesta's energy and the threat he posed allowed Xavi the space he needs. His balance and agility look like they've been CGIed. Iniesta didn't put a foot wrong today and did all the small things perfectly. However you can say the same about Xavi, and he set up Messi with an inch perfect cross, hit a great freekick against the post and played a couple of excellent long passes and pretty much every Barca attacking move started through him. As for allowing space, all Barca attacking players provided threat and all of them had some space to do stuff at one point or the other, but Xavi used it the best.

Xavi, easily. Iniesta is a great player but he didn't really do anything special in this match.

Puyol vs. Tevez, the stuff nightmares were made of.

Well at least Anderson is off

Fletcher is suspended. Right, can't say I followed the build up too closely :oops:

Why is Anderson playing, he's been woeful and CL final is the wrong place for him... Put Fletcher on for him already. Is Scholes injured? Scholes with one leg would be better than Anderson for this game..

I would rather see Barca win but I think Man Utd will win it quite comfortably.

To be honest though, Chelsea players are worse than just about anyone about intimidating ref / whining .

So what? My point is that they were the boring side yesterday and didn't play well.

Faster. They played like gimps. Chelsea didn't have two lines of four in front of their box when they had possession. As soon as Barca gained possession they needed to have their attacking players moving into space, out wide if needed, and play a pass *forward* quickly into space for them. Instead they passed it sideways for 2 minutes and then wondered why it was so difficult to get through. Chelsea made it boring? The only excitement I got from the game was (well apart from the 92+ min drama) when they attacked and broke into Barcelona box for those penalty claims and Drogba's sitter etc. I found it more exciting when Chelsea played a long ball to put Anelka through on goal instead of watching Barca midfielders pass it sideways for 2 minutes without going anywhere, but maybe that's just me.

It's not Chelsea who played shite football last night, it was Barcelona. 34385043 completed passes and 1 decent scoring chance to show for it, it was dreadful and boring as hell to watch them dick around and let Chelsea organize before playing a meaningful pass forward. ManU is going to kill them in the final.

Don't want to jinx it Alls I've been told is it's close/already has been done. Don't know who though, heard a few parties were interested. I don't think so really. One of the main strengths in our team is versatility, I think almost every player can play in more than one position. We do have a reasonably strong first 17 or so players: Howard, Hibbert, Jagielka, Yobo, Lescott, Baines, Neville, Arteta, Osman, Cahill, Fellaini, Pienaar, Rodwell, Gosling, Yakubu, Saha, Jo/Vaughan/Anichebe < Take your pick They are the main basis of the squad.After that you have the squad fillers, as I call them: Castillo, Van Der Meyde, Valente, Nash, Jacobsen. Then we have the youngsters: Baxter, Wallace, Kissock, Agard, Jutkiewicz, Irving. (Probably only the first 2 will make it with us, if they do) I think the balance is about right now, the main problem we have had is injuries. Moyes prefers the small squad as it is better for team spirit, but you can't account for the injuries we've had (length and the players who happened to). To make the step up we need to basically get rid of the squad fillers and relegate some of the main basis down into the squad filling role and replace them with a higher quality of player. I think the numbers are ok though. Do lots of Everton fans slag Moyes off for playing players out of position (versatility) or having too small squad? MON gets tons of shit about both in here..

Yep, hopefully final will be between Everton/Arse/Chelsea.

Or you could ask any supporter in the league about the magical day when they got through an opponent in a cup only to get beaten next round?

At least NRC won the super bowl..

Cards had it in them today. Without that 100 yard int return..

18-1 was a bit better maybe

What, the arm was clearly going forward with the ball? Doesn't probably matter though, just one more hail mary. Good game.

Oh feck Is there to be a final twist yet?