Don't think it is in Jose's make up to stay anywhere for life no matter what Mr Abramovich was offering He always said he wanted to coach in different countries and he will also go to Spain at some point too.



As was stated in commentary, the rules state if a hand is raised to an opponent and contacts above the neck then it is a red card, below the neck is a yellow card. Now I realise the contact was not severe and sergio made the most of it and more but Motta had already been booked and either way he was getting sent off for his offence. Rules is rules




On the previous issue the ref made his decision to the letter of the law, on this one he did not. As you say, a hand ball must be construed as being deliberate to be a free kick. This occasion was an absolute, stone wall ball to hand and in no way a free kick. Toure was 2 yards away maximum, short of cutting his arms off, he is in a no win situation if the ball were to strike him, which it did.

Each to their own. If you like your sportsmen as wet as a nymphomaniacs whim then fair play. Was a perfect example of why I let football become my distant second sport.
I do agree that Zlatan (€60m) in exchange for Eto'o (€20m) was bad business but when you compare it to other 'leading' clubs a transfer deficit lime Barça's of around €50m isn't to bad.

Barca must regret not signing Villa over Ibra. I'm not sure why they pulled the plug on the Villa deal, but it was blatantly obvious that Ibra wasn't the type of player they needed, regardless of Ibra being a top player.

I felt their only weakness was a lack of height going forward, no 'plan B' if they resort to crossing the ball into the box like they did tonight. Ibra can bring that, but even then, he isn't that type of player. They'd have been better off keeping Eto'o or signing Villa, then signing another striker as back up to bring the aerial prowess, maybe Llorente or somebody of similar stature. Obviously, hindsight is a wonderful thing and I'm sure Barca were expecting Ibra to slot in, but it's clear their football has been trained to play a certain way, Ibra doesn't fit that style. He doesn't run channels (at least effectively), he isn't that quick over short distances, he lacks mobility/agility, he doesn't work hard enough, he doesn't use his physique to his advantage and he probably has 'too much' ability for what they needed. They didn't need somebody dropping deep, somebody pulling out wide, they needed a '9', a finisher, a lethal threat, basically Eto'o or Villa. I've said all this before, but you must question Pep or whoever decided Ibra to be their man.

I don't like it, but you get used to seeing it, week in, week out.

I've seen a lot more non-league football this season and I've loved every minute of it, it's just how my grandad described it from back in the day, and it's how I seem to remember my first few matches.



Aye. They have missed Iniesta hugely over the two legs IMO, he can offer them something different. Tonight they didn't seem to have a plan B, until they decided to shoot from anywhere. Saying that, Bojan should have scored from Messi's lovely little ball.

If it's not in Mourinho's make-up to stay somewhere long-term I'd have accepted that. If Mourinho wanted to leave CFC after winning the CL with us then he could've left with my best wishes. But CFC should have done everything to keep him at SB. Pushing him out of the door in the way that we did was utterly stupid.

I think Inter might be slightly bitter about him going to Real Madrid if he dows in the summer, but I think they will be thankful for him bringing them a league title and CL win.



That's if the hand is raised in anger.

His hand wasn't raised to deliberately push him in the face. He was just trying to hold him off to keep possession of the ball. The contact with the face was accidental IMO. You don't send someone off for accidentally catching someone in the face.



A deliberate hand ball is a bookable offence (a sending off offence if the opposition are in the act of scoring). Is every handball a booking?

That whole paragraph could be written about United.

Defintely. Nobody in the bar could explain how he'd put it wide.

You seem to be having a similar problem with Berbatov. He's very similar to Ibra only not as good. I think after RvN left, United changed the way they played. They dropped the traditional 4-4-2, instead they built around Ronaldo's ability to score out wide, whilst they never had a 'target man', their tactics relied upon players supporting and breaking into the box, Ronaldo was by the best at this, but Rooney also done it really well as they aren't/weren't pure strikers, they preferred dropping deep.

Since Ronaldo's gone, United are kinda stuck in transition, you no longer have the goals coming from out wide, instead they're mainly coming from the striker, which hasn't happened since Ruud was there. I feel if you want to return to the very top, you need a striker to partner/back up Rooney, I'm not sure if Villa would be the best candidate, I think Benzema would be class if available (despite his form in Spain), whilst it's been mooted Higuain would be available, again, he'd be class at any of the top sides in England IMO. I think you need a striker, a centre midfielder and your defence has been very threadbare with injuries this year. If you can sign a top passing midfielder to partner Fletcher/Hargreaves (I like Carrick but he isn't top top drawer, whilst Anderson was still struggling before his injury), then you'll be hard to stop.

TBH I thought he'd scored at the time. I think most people would've thought the same.

He should've scored, but even the best players in the world miss chances like that all the time. His header was 50 times better than Sneijder's last week. Sneiijder got lucky by his team mate following the dreadful header and the lino missing his blatant offside. Sneijder got very, very lucky. Bojan is just the unlucky bloke who many people will blame for Barca going out.

I'd blame Guardiola over Bojan. Why start Milito at left back? Why bring Ibra off but leave Keita on the field and then proceed to work the ball into wider areas and cross it into under 6ft players?

Pep is a great manager but he shown a bit of inexperience in a really tough situation IMO. Ibra is struggling, no doubt, but he is still an undoubted threat, especially compared to Keita. I thought the starting formation was really strange, I couldn't understand why Milito was at left back, Pep realized after the break that it really wasn't working, but it was too late, Barca needed to score early if they were to have a chance, instead they tried to stroll their way into the game. They left too much to be done in the second half, the first half was really poor whilst it took them about half an hour to really go for it in the second.