Castiel

That was hardly any of the players faults though was it? The point is, Lampard and Gerrard got on with it while Scholes walked away.

Lampard never did well with England for various reasons, but at least he didn't walk out on the team in a bitch fit. Look at his club record, he scores more than most teams strikers.

Personally think you're on a WUM but thats for Mod to decide. He never won the player of the year or the Ballon d'Or for a start. Lampard did, so clearly his peers rate him higher. The Barca players wanted his shirt because a great player is retiring, the same would have happened to any great player in that situation. Depending on how you define a generation, I'd say Xavi and Zidane are better. So as I said, great player; absolute c**t, not the greatest of a generation.

Don't agree with that. A subjective comment stated like a fact, typical of United fans. He was a great player. The greatest of a generation? No. Why are you here trying to convince us anyway? Go talk about him on redcafe.

Felt the need to join a Chelsea forum to set the record straight on Scholes? I think most people agree that he was a great player, but he was also an absolute c**t. Roy Keane was worse, made some career ending tackles, so when he admits Scholes was doing it on purpose I'm going to believe him.

I'm really starting to question why you don't just go and support Barcelona the way you go on about them. Barry was clearly talking about examples of how Chelsea and Inter have overcome them, by not allowing them the room to play their passing game and to mark Messi out of the game and even depriving them of the ball. This is so effective against them that when faced with it, they resort to their diving, feigning injury and referee baiting. United failed completely in depriving them space and they were spanked as a result.

Barry's assessments are correct imo, watching Barca without Messi is watching some people pass a ball around for 90 minutes with no clear goal.

I love meeting them in Europe. Say what you will about the controversy but Chelsea v Barca is always a thriller.

Considering he's made his desire to join us so public and his love of Drogba, and that he's toured the Bridge in a Chelsea strip - if we hold out he could end up forcing the move for considerably less than £20m.

Comment in that article: "Maybe Roman has lost his phone number."

Yes I completely agree about what they were doing, but they always do that, against whoever they play against. They did it to Ronaldo against Real as well. Why Ferguson didn't use Berbatov is anyones guess.

Not sure if this has been mentioned: http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11095_6960685,00.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter If thats true, at least we'll know within the next 2 weeks.

They always play high up the pitch. When have you ever seen them in a defensive posture for an extended period of time?

We've had the ghost goal. Terry's slip. The fiasco in 2009. What other CL disasters have beset us? Bad luck can't go on forever.

Of course we can. Its a cup, anyone can win it. Our luck in it has just been extremely bad thus far.

I think thats what made him a c**t. He can't have mistimed that many tackles, he was just a bully. Weighing him on pure talent though, he was a very good player and they'll find him hard to replace.

I agree with all of this.

£20-25m? Sounds too good to be true. How can he be worth 20m to them and Bale 50m? Thats just ridiculous.

The thought of him going to Barca is disturbing. All they need is to get better.

I don't like him and he is a horrible tackler. But I wont deny that he was a great player in his day. He could run a midfield.

In his prime, Scholes was a cracking player. Not sure they can afford Sneijder, he's happy at Inter so the fee would be pretty large.

Its all what ifs though. He should have been cared a lot sooner than he was, whether he would have reigned it in is anyones guess but its all irrelevant now.

Sounds like our youth players basically carried Swansea to the Prem.

Well this is why they looked so ineffective against Real Madrid until Pepe was sent off. They were getting frustrated with the mid field interruption and Pepe was man marking Messi constantly leaving him no room. Have you noticed that we've never looked out of sorts against them? Because our style is a lot more effective against them. Barca like to play this trick with Messi which outnumbers you in the mid field. He will move around everywhere and into midfield often which outnumbers you, carrying the ball forward to Villla and Pedro or to use himself if necessary. Pepe prevented him from doing that. In 2005 we had Ferreria on Ronaldinho constantly, and when Ronaldinho pulled him too far out of position exposing that flank, Makelele took over that man making duty which rendered their midfield/forward link inert. United tried to do this with Park on Messi. But Messi is FAR too intelligent a player for Park's boundless energy to handle and it failed miserably. The other mistake was Park had the duty of right wing on top of Messi duty, but Messi, like Ronaldinho, doesn't stick to a static position on the pitch and drew Park out of formation allowing Alves to bomb forward and rape Evra. Eventually his concentration broke down and allowed Messi all the room he needed to score that goal.