Tuesday, 16th February 2010 – KO: 19:45

I don’t know about you but once we get to the knockout stage of the Champions League, it always hits home for me that we are now into the crucial stage of the season. This is where the mistakes get costly. This is where every inch has to be earned as we hopefully move towards some silverware.

Standing in our way of progress in the Champions League is an old and familiar foe – AC Milan.

When we last met them in the 2006/07 season, I really fancied our chances (especially when we won the first leg 3-2 at Old Trafford) but they completely blew us away in the return leg 3-0.

However, there was one man playing for AC Milan that evening who won’t be facing us this time – Kaka. He was incredible in that game.

This time round, there is a player who will be hoping to bang in the goals that we have been linked with on and off for years – Klaas-Jan Huntelaar. He scored a couple in their last game against Udinese so has clearly put himself in contention for a starting place for this one. Definitely one to be wary of. But Pato is also a big danger and even Ronaldinho has started to rediscover a bit of the old magic and is their other big danger.

The rest of the players, we all know about because most of them haven’t changed for the last ten years.

There is one, however, that is bound to attract more camera action than any other (even if he is on the bench for 70 minutes) and that is David Beckham.

Beckham was a very good player for United but he left at the right time because, let’s face it, he wouldn’t have had much of a look in once Ronaldo matured as a player. These days he is very much the same player that he always was although he can no longer do it for 90 minutes.

However, he still has magic in that right foot that can cause all kinds of trouble for a disorganised defence.

Anyway, enough of AC Milan. This is the Manchester United show and where the Italians were once the most feared of all opponents, they have been pushed down the ranks in recent years to the point where the very best that Italy has to offer (Inter Milan) were quite soundly beaten by us in last year’s competition.

I have no doubts whatsoever that we will have too much for AC Milan over the two legs of this tie.

The big question is: how will we fare in this away leg?

The general consensus in the Champions League is that the first leg result doesn’t matter too much so long as the away team scores at least one goal and the home team doesn’t win by three or more.

I think it is fair to say that AC Milan won’t be winning this one by three again and I also think it is fair to say that we have hit such a rich vein of scoring form that it is hard to believe that we will leave the San Siro without a goal next to our name.

I might appear to be dismissing AC Milan lightly but I’m not. Such is the experience they have, they certainly know their way around a football pitch but whilst they remain a pretty potent attacking force at their home ground, the defence is not what it once was and this could well be their undoing.

Not many teams go to the San Siro and come away with a win but it is not unusual anymore for a team to go there and come away with a goal or two.

I have no doubt that AC Milan will raise their game for this one and a 1-1 draw looks the likeliest result and that would suit us just fine but I do think we can go there and be a little more ambitious than that and actually come away with the win.

That we will score is almost beyond doubt in my opinion. The question is how will our defence fare against the attacking threat of AC Milan? If we can cope then we can win and that is what I am going to go for.

The bet is 2 points Manchester United to Win @ 2.7 with Paddy Power.

As the old cliche goes, this was very much a game of two halves. We were absolutely woeful for much of the first half and AC Milan could have found themselves 3-0 up by the time Paul Scholes scored his lucky equaliser.

Ronaldinho was immense in the first half tonight and caused all kinds of problems in the attacking third (you wouldn’t know a World Cup is coming up, would you?)

What was disappointing though was our defence in the first half. We just didn’t seem to be at the races. Evra attempted some kind of weird overhead kick clearance when Evans was standing right behind him and the effort only found Ronaldinho who smashed the ball in via a wicked deflection.

The other strange thing was our formation. Fergie went with some kind of 4-5-1 with Rooney up front and seemingly Park on the left with Nani on the right except Park seemed to be playing all over the place which left Evra covering the entire left side.

Fergie seems to have done just about everything to blank David Beckham out of existence in the days leading up to this match but I thought leaving the right hand side more or less completely unprotected was stretching the point a little too far especially when Leonardo played a bit of an ace by bringing Beckham into a more central position.

Anyway, 1-0 down after just three minutes and Milan denied a few more times after that, things didn’t look good for United until Scholes took a swing at a cross and completely missed it only for it to hit his standing foot and trickle in at around 3mph for 1-1 at half time.

At this point, I felt confident. We could hardly play any worse in the second half and the hopes were that Milan would not be able to match us for stamina as the game went on.

This proved to be the case. We were far better in the second half and Milan definitely slowed down and by the time Rooney scored his second and our third, the Milan defence were virtually statues.

At this point, I thought we could go on and score a fourth or even a fifth but we didn’t really go for the jugular and the momentum was lost.

We have had some great players at Manchester United but one of the greatest players during the last fifteen years has been a guy called Clarence Seedorf.

He came on as a sub with around 20 minutes to go and hardly got a touch to be fair but then, as the clock was ticking away for a decisive win for United, he popped up in the box and scored a cute goal for Milan’s second.

At 3-1, this tie was done and dusted. At 3-2, I still think it will take something more than Milan possess to overturn it but the gap is close enough for them to believe that they have it in them.

All things considered, I think we deserved our win here tonight. We played poorly in the first half and the referee was a complete homer. Many decisions went against us and in the end Carrick was sent off with around 4 seconds left on the clock (FFS, use some common sense ref!) which just about put a lid on a poor night for the officials.

AC Milan gave a good account of themselves and will perhaps be kicking themselves for not capitalising on their early chances.

3-2 as opposed to 3-1 makes the second leg that bit more interesting but I can’t see us making the mistakes we made tonight twice and at home, we really should be looking to inflict the kind of embarrassment that AC Milan inflicted upon us a few years ago.