Like every other Manchester United fan (and, I’m sure, Barcelona fan) I am waiting for tomorrow to arrive with the same kind of anticipation that was once reserved for Christmas Day. In the meantime, I am having to get my football fix from watching re-runs and documentaries on MUTV of matches and events past.

Last night, I sat and watched a documentary called, quite simply, “1991″ which was all about our success in the now defunct European Cup Winners Cup in 1991.

It featured interviews with many of the players who took part in the tournament: Steve Bruce, Gary Pallister, Clayton Blackmore, Bryan Robson, Paul Ince, Mike Phelan and, of course, Mark Hughes and followed our progress through the rounds right to the Final where Barcelona were waiting.

We went on to stun them by winning the match 2-1 and many feel that it was this victory that acted as the catalyst for what was to come in the next twenty years to leave us where we are today… facing Barcelona in a European Final.

Being the 20th anniversary of that momentus occasion in the history of Manchester United, it is somewhat fitting that our opponents tomorrow evening will be Barcelona once again.

The symmetry of all this doesn’t end there, however, and there are several things which have occured to me over the last week or so which I had never previously considered.

One thing that I had never realised is that Barcelona have only won the European Cup (Champions League) three times – the same as us and their first victory in the competition came the very year after we had beaten them in the aforementioned Cup Winners Cup Final – 1992.

Their next victory in the club came several years later – 2006 and then, of course, they beat us in 2009 to make it three.

To add to all this symmetrical strangeness, our first European Cup success was in 1968 and was won at Wembley. Barcelona’s first European Cup success was also won at Wembley. Tomorrow’s final is, of course, at Wembley.

It feels like both clubs are right back where it all started for them and by tomorrow night, the circle will be complete for one of them.

The bookies make Barcelona strong favourites to win tomorrow night – this is good – that is exactly how it was twenty years ago.

Fergie stayed true to his word for this one and fielded a very strong team which got the job done although I must admit that for long periods, I did believe that my bet of Blackpool +1.0 in the Asian Handicap was going to run out a winner.

Whilst United were doing all the right things, they seemed to be doing them in second or third gear for most of the match but perhaps this is why this United side have come in for so much criticism this season? They don’t seem to be doing anything particularly breathtaking for long spells of matches but then they end up winning the match, scoring four goals in the process. As Fergie said himself after the match, we must be doing something right?

I genuinely feel now that this Manchester United side is highly deceptive. Our passing was generally excellent in the first half and our ball retention meant that Blackpool were left chasing shadows for long spells, this then leads to opponents becoming tired towards the end of a match and probably accounts for why we have scored so many goals late on in matches.

Anyway, I digress although it is something to bear in mind in terms of how this match panned out.

Ji-Sung Park put us 1-0 ahead midway through the first half before Charlie Adam levelled the score with the kind of free-kick that Fergie will undoubtedly say is worth £10million by itself. The slight “shock” came when Blackpool took a 2-1 lead, though, just before the hour mark. At this stage, we had had numerous opportunities to go ahead ourselves but Berbatov was being his usual frustrating self and seemed to be on a one-man mission to save Blackpool from the drop.

Sublime first touches, nifty bits of footwork, great little runs and then a complete failure to trouble the Blackpool keeper pretty much summed up his game – some would argue that this sums up the greater part of his three seasons at Old Trafford.

Anyway, at this stage, I was convinced that the bet would be a winner and I had an even greater feeling that my hunch that the match would end in a draw was going to be proved correct – I could certainly see us scoring another goal in the remaining 35 minutes or so.

It actually came just five minutes later froma source which might have been unexpected a few weeks ago but Anderson finally appears to have put his goalscoring hoodoo behind him and scored a delightful goal to level the scores at 2-2.

Disaster struck for Blackpool twelve minutes later though as Evatt deflected a Chris Smalling (yes, Chris Smalling!) cross into his own net to make the score 3-2 to us. I still wasn’t writing off Blackpool at this stage, though even though it was becoming quite clear that the Blackpool players were tiring.

Whilst Fergie was bringing on the likes of Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen, Ian Holloway was scraping the bottom of the Blackpool barrel and his own subs had little impact and it was Michael Owen who had the final say on proceedings with a typically well-taken goal after he had sprung the offside trap with a typically well-timed run.

And that was that. United barely seemed to break sweat in this match but still managed to win convincingly against an opponent who were giving it every last ounce of strength and ability that they possessed. Whilst two of our four goals may well have come following some calamatous defending from Blackpool, it must also be noted that three of our four goals came in the last half hour and that is what I was alluding to earlier – we seem to be able to wear teams down and then go for the jugular when their resistance has been broken.

Of course, our season doesn’t end here, we have Gary Neville’s little friendly tomorrow against Juventus (although quite who Fergie will choose to play in that one remains to be seen! Personally, I wish he’d invite back a few other legends of that golden era when United and Juventus were close rivals: who wouldn’t pay to watch Zinedine Zidane play against for Juve for ten minutes before sticking on the United shirt for ten minutes the other way? Oh well, we can but dream.

Like just about everyone else though, my dreams are likely to be filled with what I want to see happen on Saturday night when we take on Barcelona in the Champions League Final!

This is a funny old game to finish the season on. We, of course, go into the game having already wrapped up the title and probably now have our eyes more firmly focused on the Champions League final next weekend but with Blackpool very much involved in the relegation battle, we will be expected to give a good account of ourselves. I don’t think any of the other teams involved in the relegation battle need worry too much on that score. With this being the last game of a spectacular Old Trafford campaign, the players will surely want to send the fans home with a good performance to reflect on and we will surely want to finish the season unbeaten at home.

As for Blackpool, I think Holloway has had his eye on this fixture for months and has been buttering Fergie up at every opportunity, dropping his name into lots of his press conferences and generally referring to Fergie’s awesomeness as much as possible. It might all prove to have been worthwhile come the end of this match tomorrow afternoon because I have a hunch that this match will end in a draw.

I cannot believe that Blackpool will win this one but with the changes Fergie is likely to make to the team, they may well be facing an “understrength” Manchester United – although Schalke might tell a story of just how “weak” an understrength United team is! I just think that a draw will keep everyone happy.

It’s going to be a strange atmosphere in the ground after the match is over and the other results from the games involving relegation-threatened teams are known – the United players and fans will be in party mood whilst the Blackpool fans will either be crying their eyes out or joining in with a celebration of their own.

It’s not one I want to get particularly involved in from a betting perspective. Under normal circumstances and with the the way Blackpool have been defending of late, this should be a hammering of 3-0 or 4-0 type proportions but I just think that it could end up a close call and, as I say, a draw would not be a surprise.

The bet is going to be 2 points Blackpool +1.0 AH @ 1.97 with Bet365.

The nonsense goes on about how good (or otherwise) this United side are but our victory over Chelsea yesterday puts us on the brink of a record 19th top-flight league title. Just one more point from our next two games will confirm it but unless Chelsea win their last two games, it’s already ours.

What is slightly annoying about all this stuff about the current team/squad is that we have beaten last season’s Champions (Chelsea) four times this season and lost against them just once. There was no mass exodus of players from Chelsea over the summer and they have brought in several re-inforcements to cover the couple of players who did leave.

No one was querying whether or not Chelsea were a great side when they pipped us to the title by a point last season.

The fact of the matter is that this is (yes, I’m counting it as a done deal) our fourth league title in five years and we were a whisker away from making it an absolutely unheard of five in five.

What this United side is perhaps lacking is that real personality within the ranks, that flair player who gets fans on the edge of their seat every time they get the ball but what we do have are a squad of around 25 players who go about their jobs in a professional fashion and none of them appear to believe that they are better than the rest – that their place within the team is assured and will throw a sulk if they’re dropped.

This week has also shown the depth of that squad as Fergie made umpteen changes for Schalke and then changed it all back again for this one and we still came through both games as pretty convincing winners. The fact that the two games this week were so important counts for a lot in my book. Two massive tests were placed before the players this week and they passed them both with flying colours.

That is how good this United team is.

Anyway, back to this match…

I said before the game that I had a hunch that Fergie might go with Berba ahead of Chicharito but the boss stuck with the Little Pea who proceeded to make me look an absolute mug when he put us 1-0 in front after around 37 seconds! That’s twenty for the season and there’s still a few games left to play – I would not put another couple past him if he gets the games.

Whatever happens from here on in though, the Little Pea can enjoy his summer holiday, safe in the knowledge that he has already endeared himself to every Manchester United fan around the world. It has been an absolutely staggering debut season for him already. Let’s hope there’s still more to come from him in the Champions League Final!

The goal seemed to cause Chelsea all kinds of problems and Ancelotti was staring daggers at Luiz (who was largely to blame for the goal) for the rest of the first half. Correct me if I’m wrong Carlo but isn’t the fact that Sideshow Bob is playing for Chelsea solely down to you?

Anyway, there was more to come as Vidic headed in our second on around 23 minutes or so. We haven’t seen as much of this from Vidic this season but that one was worth its weight in gold. 2-0 up and the realisation dawned that Chelsea now needed to score three without reply to take the lead in the title race.

They came close and Van Der Sar had to be alert to keep out Kalou’s header just moments later but he did what was needed to protect his goal and Chelsea were frustrated with any of their attempts in a first half that we largely dominated and looked a class above them, if truth be told.

A mention here has to be given to the midfield. There were times in this match that I thought we had two Ji-Sung Parks on the pitch – he was everywhere with an immense performance from the first minute to the last.

And then there’s the evergreen Giggs who seems to have been drinking from the fountain of youth again – or maybe it is just the scent of silverware that acts as smelling-salts for him? Whatever it is, he was as good as anyone on the pitch here today. Cometh the hour and all that.

Valencia had a great game too and turned Cole inside out so many times that he probably needed surgery to remove his shirt by the 90th minute.

Carrick did what he does best with a quietly understated performance that allowed Chelsea very little opportunities to play the ball through the middle.

It was slightly disappointing that Chelsea got a goal back in the second half but they probably deserved a goal, they had created a few chances by that stage and sooner or later, one was bound to go in. What was a little disappointing about it was the fact that it was Ivanovic’s header down to Lampard that led to the goal because Ivanovic was probably very lucky to still be on the pitch at that stage after a string of fouls on Rooney in the first half.

Anyway, the match ended 2-1 and that was more than enough. Hernandez missed a couple of chances that he would normally be fancied to take but Chelsea were largely restricted to half chances.

The one thing that has to be mentioned because it is likely to be forgotten because it didn’t matter too much in the end is the fact that, yet again, Chelsea got away with two stonewall penalties. The difference this time was that United took matters in their own hands and did not rely on the referee.

Firstly there was a handball by Lampard from a Valencia cross in the second half. The ball clearly struck Lampard’s arm but it must have been deemed accidental – it didn’t look accidental to me, though. Lampard knew exactly what he was doing with his arm outstretched like that – he was “making himself big” in order to give the ball every chance of being cut out which is exactly what happened.

The second was a clear trip on Valencia by John Terry. I watched the replay of this one on Sky Sports and Alan Smith’s verdict was that Valencia “kicked Terry’s foot as much as anything” which is quite possibly one of the most laughably bad bits of commentary I have ever heard. Terry clearly tripped Valencia long after the ball had gone. The critical movement that caused the impact came from Terry – not Valencia.

In fairness, Chelsea had their own penalty claim which was also dismissed by Howard Webb and it looked like Webb was determined not to give any penalties in this game unless someone did a flying kung-fu kick into someone’s chest or something.

Perhaps as a little dig at Chelsea, Fergie said after the match when questioned about the penalty decisions, “Well, at least we can say that we won it without the referee’s help”.

Indeed.

Every single player in the squad has been immense this season and this week in particular. Nothing has been won yet but it feels great to be a supporter of such a “poor” team right now.

Well, if this is squeaky bum time then Old Trafford is likely to resemble a scene from “Blazing Saddles” come 4.10pm this afternoon. This is one humongous game.

After thirty-five games played and still two more to come after this, the destination of the Premier League title could well all rest on the ninety minutes that are played here.

One thing that I am mightily pleased about is the fact that Martin Atkinson won’t be in charge of this match and Howard Webb has been given the job of officiating here today. It’s slightly sad when the referee the FA pick becomes almost as important than the players Fergie picks but that’s what a string of dodgy decisions do for your confidence in the officials.

To be fair, all four of our matches against Chelsea this season have been pretty fairly contested with only a smattering of controversy. Chelsea should have had a penalty in our Champions League match at the Bridge and Luiz should have been sent off in our Premier League match at the Bridge.

Other than that, the matches have been typically well contested and I feel 3-1 to us overall could have been 2-1-1 but we have generally had the upper hand on Chelsea this season.

The most encouraging thing though is that we have had the upper hand on almost everybody who has entered The Theatre of Dreams this season and we remain unbeaten at Old Trafford in all competitions. In fact, the last team to beat us at Old Trafford was … er… Chelsea – last April (Drogba two miles yards offside, anyone?)

Anyway, history belongs in the history books. What matters now is this match. What’s going to happen?

Well, we have seen a slightly worrying habit from United over the last couple of seasons for them to go ahead in a match and then start to sit further and further back, attempting to hold onto the lead and almost every time it comes back to haunt us as the opposition eventually gets the equaliser.

In a way, we start this match with a one goal lead and my main concern is that we will try to defend it which would surely be an enormous mistake against a team of Chelsea’s attacking quality. I really don’t want to see us attempting to play for a draw for ninety minutes even though a draw would be a perfectly satisfactory result as far as we’re concerned.

Something similar to our two recent Champions League matches would be good. Chelsea basically need to score in this game. A draw is very little use to them and we have shown several times this season that we can soak up their pressure and hit them on the counter.

Personally, I would like to see us take Chelsea by surprise and attack them from the off. We have shown on several occasions this season that we have a solid defence and with the likely central-midfield of Carrick and Giggs, a nice balance of defence and attack which can shield the defence whilst still probing for the goal.

One thing I have a slight hunch about is that Fergie might choose to go with Rooney and Berbatov upfront for this one. Hernandez has been preferred to Berba of late but Berba played well against Schalke in midweek and has scored the majority of his goals at Old Trafford this season. I just have a slight suspicion that Hernandez is just starting to feel the weight of expectation. It’s not a criticism; the lad has been fantastic this season and should he start in this game then it won’t be a surprise but a game of this magnitude, at OT, may just be a game for the calm, old head of Berbatov.

The Rooney/Berba partnership was never too shabby, in any case.

Anyway, this is obviously not one I would like to bet on. My heart obviously wants United to win but my head (or possibly my nerves) are telling me that it will end in a draw.

It’s a token gesture but I think I’m going to go with the draw.

The bet is 1 point on the draw @ 3.30 with Betfred. (The bookie who paid out on United winning the league weeks ago!)

Yes, so I’m two days late with the review – things have been a little hectic here of late (moving house, amongst other things!) I don’t care, I was determined to write something about this match because it was just so bloody good.

I must admit that I thought that this match would be a low-scoring affair and when I saw the team that Fergie was putting out, I was even more certain of it.

Look at the team:-

Berbatov – lone striker, hasn’t scored in Europe since 2008.

Anderson – Had scored one goal in a competitive match for the first team since his arrival in 2007.

Valencia – hardly reknowned for his goalscoring.

Nani – Gone off the boil on the goal-scoring front in recent weeks.

Scholes – Still pops up with the odd goal but nowhere near as prolific as he once was.

Gibson – Capable of the occasional 25 yard thunderbolt but hardly one to pin your hopes on when a goal is needed.

And then there’s the defence and the goalkeeper.

In all honesty, I couldn’t quite see where the goals were going to come from – especially with a goalkeeper like Neuer standing in the way.

We were aided by the fact that we didn’t actually need to score any goals in the game – taking a 2-0 lead from the first game meant that we simply had to stop Schalke from scoring two of their own and we’d be through to the Final for the third time in four seasons.

Fergie knows his players though and he trusted these lads to rise to the occasion and produce what was necessary to see us through. It was a gamble, make no mistake about that and if they had blown it, we would never have heard the end of it but with a massive game against Chelsea coming up at the weekend, Fergie clearly decided not to risk most of the players who will likely be playing a role in that game and made nine changes to the side that won the first leg of this tie over in Germany.

For the first twenty minutes or so of the match, there were some worrying signs that maybe, just maybe, Fergie had made an error in judgement as Schalke looked far more comfortable at OT than they ever did at the Veltins-Arena in the first leg.

However, Valencia’s goal after 26 minutes eased all worries and when Gibson rattled one home five minutes later, the tie was completely over as a contest. No team was going to overturn a four goal deficit at Old Trafford and certainly not this Schalke team although they finally pulled one back a few minutes later just to remind everyone that there were actually two sides involved in this tie.

The was more to come in the game but it didn’t really happen until well into the second half when, of all people, Anderson bagged a brace to make the score 4-1 on the night and 6-1 on aggregate and this leads me onto one of the main points I took from this match – Anderson.

I was a little critical of him against Arsenal (although, in fairness, it was more to do with the role he was being asked to play in that game rather than the player himself). I just couldn’t see the point of him against Arsenal. However, I could see the point of him in this game and he ran his socks off getting up and down the pitch all through the game. The goals that came towards the end were just rewards for the lad.

The strange thing is that anyone who has watched Anderson play for the reserves would not have been too surprised by this performance because this is how he plays in the reserves (and he does score goals in the reserves, too – sometimes even two in a game!). It looked very much like Fergie had told him not to stray beyond the half-way line against Arsenal but had given him free-reign in this one and he took full advantage to put in arguably his best all-round performance since joining us. He was expectional, looked really hungry and two goals were his just rewards.

Of course, much is going to be made of how poor Schalke were/are in much the same vein as we have been hearing all season why we are only top of the Premier League because the other nineteen teams have been so poor and it may well be that we met an average side who had enjoyed a freakishly good run to somehow get themselves to a Champions League semi-final only for their true colours to show at the worst possible moment.

I said after the first leg that the only player in their side who looked worthy of a place in a CL Final was Neuer but even he looked dodgy in this one and his attempted save from Gibson’s shot was ridiculously bad. I’ve even heard that some Bayern fans don’t even want him to go there next season – especially after they watched their team put four past Neuer just a few days before we managed it!

Being greedy here but perhaps the most frustrating thing about this semi-final was the fact that Schalke closely resembled Lyon in last year’s semi-final against Bayern Munich and there is a sense of regret about “what might have been” had we been to see out the quarter-final against Bayern which we were utterly dominating coming up to half-time at Old Trafford in the second leg.

Oh well. We’ll just have to make do with three finals in four years and apparently we go to Wembley with nothing more than a whupping to look forward to.

Hehe… we’ll see about that.

Well... it looked like his head at first glance. Anatomy & Physiology Classes for all, methinks.

As us Manchester United reflect on the fact that the worst possible scenario over the weekend has come to fruition, it all has an air of inevitability about it to me, especially after Chelsea were again the beneficiaries of the doubt when it came to the big decisions in their match against Tottenham.

However, this is not about Chelsea. We knew full well that we had to concentrate on our own task and win our own games and, if we did that, then it wouldn’t matter one jot if Chelsea were awarded a goal every time the ball came within a yard of their opponent’s net or not.

But, like the away match against Chelsea a couple of months ago and the away match against Liverpool a few days later, we failed to deliver in a Premier League away match against a big rival when it mattered most and we must now hope that we can make amends when our chance comes at Old Trafford next weekend. It would certainly be the worst possible time to lose our first home game of the season but as this weekend has shown, nothing can be discounted or taken for granted against Chelsea.

As for yesterday’s game… well… I was quite happy when I saw the positive starting line-up which was a sort of 4-4-2 with Rooney helping out in midfield but as the first half progressed, I became more and more bemused by the role Anderson was playing.

Arsenal were all over us for huge portions of the first half and we couldn’t even get the ball for long periods of play and it looked very much like were were playing with ten men and I put that down to Anderson who was neither here nor there as far as I could see.

He played one or two very good passes when he did eventually get the ball but apart from that, I could not see any point to him whatsoever. He seemed to be getting himself into acres of space which is all well and good when we have the ball but he seemed to be doing it when Arsenal had the ball (which was most of the time) too which left me wondering – who, exactly, does he expect to win the ball back from Arsenal?

Carrick often plays in this way but the difference between Anderson and Carrick is the fact that Carrick does it well. It is something which is often overlooked by Carrick’s critics but, if you watch Carrick closely, you will notice that he is always looking to get into a position that prevents a ball forward by the opposition. Anderson wasn’t doing this and just seemed to be standing as far away from play as possible which meant that Arsenal had free passage through the midfield.

I am aware that I am being extremely unkind to single him out here because other midfielders like Park (who fell asleep in the build-up to Arsenal’s goal), Nani and eventually, Valencia, didn’t have their most effective days either and because of this under-performing midfield, Rooney was drawn further and further back which all combined to ensure that Hernandez had one of his quietest games since joining us. There was simply very little support for him and virtually no service and on the occasions when he did seem to get into a good position, he found himself offside.

And then there’s the penalty decisions.

The first went against Arsenal as Vidic seemed to handle a cross destined for Van Persie’s head. All I can say about this one is that every tv commentator I have heard initially believed Vidic had headed the ball when the incident was viewed in real-time and myself and the people I was watching the game with were all initially congratulating Vidic on a great piece of defending. It was only when Van Persie ran away screaming at the linesman that Vidic had used a hand that the replays were brought out which showed that Vidic’s head was nowhere near the ball whilst his hand most certainly was.

It was slightly bizarre, however, because the ball didn’t appear to deviate in its flight which may have suggested that Vidic actually got nothing on the ball but the fact that a corner was awarded to Arsenal clearly shows that all concerned believed that he did.

For all of Vidic’s great points, it is these moments of madness which have many a United supporter shaking their head because it did look like he knew what he was doing with his hand and it could easily have led to a penalty and a red-card for Vidic which would have ensured that he would play no further part for the rest of the Premier League campaign. Crazy.

However, there were three other penalty appeals (two of which were ignored completely on Match of the Day last night).

The first was when an Arsenal player appeared to grip Evra’s arm between his chest and his own arm and tugged him to the ground. To be honest, I am sure that Evra possesses the physical strength to extricate himself from what would have hardly been a vice-like grip and did appear to be looking for it. It would have been a soft penalty.

The second was when Aaron Ramsey clearly handled the ball. The referee blew for a free kick and indicated a spot some two yards or so outside the area but it was nowhere near that far out. Ramsey started inside the box and jumped forward as he handled and so his finishing position was some distance from his starting position. TV replays showed that the contact was actually made when the ball was on the line – which is a penalty. Again, the benefit of the doubt should probably be given to the officials who are not blessed with stop-motion vision but it was another case of how tiny margins can have enormous consequences.

The third was a stonewall penalty though and I cannot believe that the referee didn’t see this one. There is absolutely no excuse.

A delightful ball played forward from Rooney should have seen the deadly Michael Owen through one on one with the keeper but Owen, who has made a career on opportunities such as those, fell to the ground and replays showed that Clichy clearly took Owen’s leg out from behind and there was nothing subtle about it.

This was the one incident that Match of the Day did show and, predictably, claimed that it evened things up after Vidic’s “handball” earlier in the game. Indeed, Sky Sports commentator and ex-Arsenal player Alan Smith seemed to claim after every United penalty appeal that they evened things up as each one went by! Perhaps we would have been awarded a point had we won the game 3-1 had he been in charge of proceedings?

All things considered though, I think Arsenal probably deserved their win. We simply did not perform well enough to merit a win whilst Arsenal played at least as well as us during our good patches and better than us during their good spells.

What is slightly concerning at this stage is how difficult we seem to be finding it to score from open play. We actually had more shots than Arsenal in this game and twice as many of ours were on target but Szczesny was rarely troubled, in all honesty.

Having said that for all Arsenal’s pretty passing and superior possession, Edwin was rarely troubled either except for, obviously, the goal.

What is worrying about this is that the title race has now come down to a basic shoot-out between ourselves and Chelsea and should the unthinkable happen next weekend and Chelsea take the three points, they will go ahead on goal difference and I wouldn’t back us to outscore them to take the title at this stage.

The good news is that we have enjoyed two very good wins over Chelsea in the Champions League recently and we are more than capable of delivering a third at Old Trafford next Sunday.

At this stage, I would rather be three points ahead with Chelsea to play at OT than three points behind with Chelsea to play at Stamford Bridge. We’re making life typically difficult for ourselves though and I just hope that next week the officials don’t make it any harder.

The first of two fixtures that could determine the destination of the title begin this afternoon as we make our way to the Emirates to play what could well have been a title decider but, due to Arsenal’s woeful form and inability to hold a lead, is now “just” a pretty big obstacle in the way of us and our nineteenth title.

It has to be admitted that Chelsea’s win yesterday heaps considerable pressure on us to get something out of this game and whilst three points would obviously be great, a point will do.

Fergie was quite bullish in his press conference the other day when he said:-

“The slant I seemed to be getting is that Arsenal and Chelsea are expecting to win these games and change the top of the league,” stated Ferguson.

“Why can’t we win these matches? Surely, given the form we are in, we can.

“It is not going to be any easier for Arsenal or Chelsea than it is for us. These are difficult games.”

It’s hard to argue that we haven’t proved more than capable of beating Chelsea having just beaten them twice in the Champions League and we have handed Arsenal a few beatings in recent seasons, too.

That doesn’t do much to stop my bum from twitching though and it has nothing to do with the vindaloo I had last night.

Fortunately, the United players appear to ice flowing through their veins at the moment and have passed several big, big tests of late and, looking at this one as objectively as possible, Arsenal really should fear us more than we fear them at the moment because they have been failing the tests week after week since their Carling Cup final defeat at the end of February.

Both managers would seem to have a full squad to choose from for this one and it is going to be interesting to see if Fergie goes with Berbatov who has apparently recovered from the “groin strain” which has kept him out since missing a sitter against City in the FA Cup semi-final or will he go with the dynamic duo of Rooney and Chicharito? There can be no denying that Berba has been left out of several of the “bigger” matches so far this season and I would expect this to continue today with Berba perhaps given the nod in the midweek Schalke match.

Arsenal’s home form has been generally very good – they have obviously drawn too many games of late but they do remain unbeaten at the Emirates since Tottenham beat them 3-2 in November last year.

Our away form has got better in recent months but it has still been a cause for concern and, as mentioned yesterday, I heard a stat the other day which I found quite surprising – we have not beaten a team in the top half of the table away from home all season!

That stat is not strictly true right now though – we did beat Stoke 2-1 in October and they currently lie tenth in the league – just about in the top half!

Anyway, today would be a good day to set that particular record straight and we are perfectly capable of doing so. I just feel that we’re going to come away from the Emirates with a point though.

Coming up with a bet for this one is difficult because there are so many ways that it could pan out. The bookies feel that it is going to be a low-scoring match and quite probably a 1-1 draw but I can certainly see 2-1 or perhaps even the 3-1 we achieved here last season.

I cannot believe that Arsenal will win this game but there is the possibility that they won’t do one of their recent suicide jobs because the pressure is largely off them now and so if they have a lead with minutes to go, they may well have the wherewithal to hang onto it this time.

My gut feeling is a draw with a slight bias towards a United win and so I am going to go into the Asian Handicap market for this one.

The bet is 3 points Manchester United +0,+0.5 @ 1.78 with Stan James.

What was I saying yesterday about the tiny margins between success and failure?

Not a Goal

In the end, I didn’t actually watch the match between Chelsea and Tottenham last evening, preferring instead to go out for an Indian with my family and I’m glad I did because I’m pretty sure that I would have done some terminal damage to my telly had I been watching this abomination.

When I saw the timings of Chelsea’s two goals – just on half-time and just before full-time, I thought, “typical Chelsea” but when I actually saw the “goals”, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. One “goal” didn’t cross the line and one “goal” was quite clearly offside.

Long-time readers of this site will know my feelings on video technology but just to avoid any confusion, I’ll repeat it… it should be brought in immediately. In fact, it should have been brought in several years ago.

Sepp Blatter won’t have it because he feels that this kind of nonsense is good for the game because it gives people things to talk about (or something).

That’s all well and good if you don’t mind people talking about how they feel that this makes the game possibly corrupt, how this makes FIFA a laughing stock and how people come away from a match that they have paid good money to watch feeling absolutely robbed.

Let’s not even get onto how much of an impact these decisions had on the outcome of the Premier League title because it isn’t yet known and, for the same reason, let’s not speculate on how many tens of millions of pounds that this might have cost Spurs should they fail to qualify for the Champions League.

We don’t need to speculate about the impact it has on people, though. It makes people angry, disillusioned and sick.

Perhaps there are other crazy sado-masochists out there besides Blatter who feel that this kind of thing is good for the game but, in all honesty, I have yet to meet one.

It is now down to Manchester United to restore some credibility to this shambles by beating Arsenal today and beating Chelsea next week and it is more than my love for Manchester United that makes me want that to happen right now.

I was going to write a post yesterday about our Semi-Final first leg against Schalke but, having said that I didn’t know what to make of it before the match, I found that I was still scratching my head about it after the match and so I thought I would give it some more thought.

It was supposed to be a semi-final of Europe’s premier football competition but it more closely resembled a training match where one team is instructed to defend while the other is instructed to attack.

I watched the match in complete bemusement about what I was seeing. Watching from home on Sky TV, I could perhaps be forgiven for believing at times that we were the home team whilst Schalke were the away team trying to contain us in order to “do us” when they get us “back to their place”.

Was this really the team that had steamrollered over all-comers in the Champions League this season? Was this really the side who had hit the reigning champions, Inter Milan, for seven over the two legs of their quarter final? Or was this some kind of trick? Have they lulled us into some weird sense of false security and have led us all to believe that this semi-final is as good as over before they start to play again once they come to Old Trafford?

The biggest problem with weighing up Schalke was attempting to reconcile their Champions League form with their Bundesliga form because it was Schalke and cheese (get in!).

Domestically, their record is no better than, say, West Brom in the Premier League but come Champions League nights, they suddenly turned into Manchester United circa 1999. Until Tuesday night, at any rate, when comparisons to West Brom do the Baggies an injustice.

They were awful. The final scoreline read Schalke 0 – 2 Man Utd but it should have read Neuer 0 – 2 Man Utd because make no mistake about it, their Captain, keeper and only player in their side worthy of a place in the Champions League final was Manuel Neuer who put in the kind of performance that makes him one of the hottest goalkeeping properties in world football.

We, of course, have been linked with him but I believe that he wants to stay in Germany and Bayern Munich is his preferred destination. I don’t know if the deal can be hijacked but if it is at all possible then I believe Fergie should break the bank for him. Replacing Schmeichel all those years ago proved an arduous task. Fergie won’t want to make that mistake again once Van Der Sar leaves in the Summer. Not when he has just watched the most skull-bashingly obvious replacement frustrate his side for the best part of 70 minutes, at any rate.

Anyway, I don’t know why I am moaning about all this. The match was fair, it was refereed well, there were no controversial decisions and the better team won convincingly. It should have been 5-0 to United but it ended 2-0 and any of us would have taken that beforehand.

Maybe, just maybe, this Manchester United side is not as bad as almost everyone has been saying it is this season? Maybe this side really is the real deal? Of course, we have had our blips in recent weeks and not everything has gone exactly according to plan but more often than not, it has and that is why we stand on the brink of our fourth Premier League title in five years and our third Champions League final in four years.

In any case, I would rather we continued as we are rather than the way those other giants of European football conduct themselves because I tried to watch a bit of the Real Madrid v Barcelona match last night but found myself switching backwards and forwards to the World Championship Snooker because it was doing my head in to watch those “footballing giants” doing almost everything in order to not play any football.

What an appalling advert for “Europe’s premier football competition”. Both sets of players seemed more interested in conning the referee than scoring a goal and by half-time, the whole thing had descended into farce. I had a few quid on a red card being shown in the second half and, sure enough, it materialised with a Real Madrid player being sent off to make the game even more farcical.

It was left to the best player on the planet to restore some credibility to the tie with two fantastic goals to give Barca a commanding 2-0 lead going into the home tie at the Nou Camp where they will surely finish this semi-final off.

So, at this stage, it looks very much like we’ll have a rematch with Barca in the final and, despite Barca getting all the plaudits this season, I would fancy our chances against them right now although we’ll have to be far more clinical with our finishing.

I get ahead of myself, though. Schalke are on their way to OT… apparently.