Still Following the Trawler

Good. Performance . When I first saw the line-up, heavily influenced by tomorrows league game - no Vidic, Ferdinand, Evra, Giggs, Rooney or Hernandez - I was confused. It looked as thought we were going into an insignificant 4th round Carling Cup game against second tier opposition, not a game that, if  we overcame the opposition, would see us enter the most prestigious continental cup final in the world. However, as with in the first leg, the quality that our opposition lacked provided our largely inexperienced side with a surprisingly straight forward encounter. Schalke have been  possibly the weakest, least challenging side we have ever faced in a Champions League semi-final, however our displays over both legs - the coherence we showed as a unit, our confidence and prowess in front of goal, and the solid defensive displays (even though two completely different sets of defenders were used for each game) - should not be ignored, nor disregarded due to the lack of a...

Prior to the game, all the talk was understandably about United's poor form against, and failure to overcome, German opposition in the Champions League. So as the tabloids so delighted in reminding us: first came Borrusia Dortmund in 1996/97 - our first memorable appearance in the competition - where our heroic 4-0 performance against Porto in the Quarter Final was reduced to mere memories (firmly securing it's status in the now classic genre of 'great European nights at Old Trafford'). Fast forward to 2001 and it was Bayern's turn to do us and in turn seek revenge for '99 and all that. It was then the unfancied and underestimated Leverkusen the season after that, going through on away goals, and finally we look back just over 12 months ago to Bayern's second pop at destroying us in the Quarter Finals, although this time round it was that bit more painful . It's fair to say therefore that the German's have a given us a good hiding over the years, del...

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE SEMI-FINAL FIRST LEG Venue:   Veltins-Arena Date:  Tuesday 26 April Kick-off:  1945 BST Schalke 04 Bundesliga: Games W D L GD Pts 9 TSG Hoffenheim 31 10 10 11 2 40 10 Schalke 04 31 11 7 13 0 40 11 Werder Bremen 31 9 11 11 -14 38 League form: L D W W L W Last game  (23 rd   Ap ril, 2011) : Schalke 04 0-1  Kaiserslautern  (12th) Top Scorer: Raul – 12 (18 in total) United Premier League: Games W D L GD Pts 1 Manchester United 34 21 10 3     39 73 2 Chelsea 34 20 7 7 37 67 3 Arsenal 34 18 10 6 31 64 League form: W D L W W W Last game  (24th   April, 2011) : United 1-0  Everton  (7th) Top Scorer: Berbatov – 21 (22 in total)