Castiel

Mourinho's Chelsea and Inter squads were pretty much exactly how he wanted them. The Real squad hardly has any players he likes to use.

What so disappointing is the cheating though. They showed last night what they can really do. They completely annihilated the champions of England without breaking a sweat. Why they tarnish what could be something football could be proud of with the cheating, diving and feigning injury when clearly they don't need to is just a mystery to me. Hugely, hugely talented team, a sight to behold, but a bunch of absolute c**ts. I almost wish they weren't because of how good they are but I guess that'd be too perfect for this world.

That Barca team is once in a lifetime. You can't purposefully put it together. Real have spent untold millions trying. Its quite literally, a freak of nature.

Provided Barca keep this up there is no reason Pep would want to leave. He's Catalan to the core and been there forever. This is probably his dream job with his dream team. Their next manager will probably be Xavi.

I'm sure Barcelona were bricking themselves watching United draw with the mighty Blackburn Rovers.

That was my original point. Mourinho's formula for Barcelona is the only strategy I've seen consistently beat them. Used by 3 different teams so far. Whether Real would have beaten them without the red card is hugely debatable but 2/3 is a lot better than anyone else can claim.

Of course. I counted at least 7 yellow offences before he finally got one.

Look, I'm talking about Mourinho's 4231 counter attack strategy against them, not Real vs Barca. In the 5-0 Mourinho didn't use that strategy and look what happened. In every other case, before and since that match, Mourinho has done the same thing, and his teams have always looked unbreakable against them until a red card or penalty or something like that. THAT was my point, stop reading into what isn't there.

Well didn't know any of that, just by his demeanour in press conferences he seemed ok to me. In that case glad Messi schooled him. Evra was their worst man on the pitch by far, when Barca figured that out all their attacks came from his side and he failed miserably every time.

No sympathy: "Not Arrogant, Just Better" How'd that pan out?

The point is he was clearly experimenting. Real is the first time he's had a team with arguably the same level of attacking talent that Barcelona have - so he wanted to see if his players could do it. There wasn't much defensive attempt in that game at all, it didn't look like any Mourinho game I've ever seen.

Van Basten being a prolific striker himself, maybe he can help Torres. :P

Mourinho was never humiliated by them the way United were though. Yes, I know about the 5-0 but he went all out attack in that, I guess he wanted to see if his players could go toe to toe with Barca and it clearly failed. Whenever Mourinho loses while playing his strategy against them it involves a critical decision going against his team (not to stray into the argument over why these decisions happen). But otherwise, Barca couldn't break us down in 2005. They couldn't break Inter down in 2010 and they couldn't break Real down in 2011 until Pepe was sent off. His strategy against them is realistic. You simply can't go head on at them or you will be humiliated.

Put back in their place. Best club in the world my f**king arse. Barcelona absolutely schooled them.

True. The other thing is these people have been playing together since the youth academy. They know each other so well now that their passing and movement is instinctual. It takes a long time to form that kind of cohesion. Most good teams including us can pull those moments out and create astonishing goals occasionally, but this Barca team can reproduce it regularly. I suspect this is what Wenger wanted to achieve with Arsenal, lets be happy he failed.

We couldn't play like them any more than they could play like us. We have completely different styles. We'd need a new squad to emulate them.

I will miss van der Sar, always struck me as a really nice guy.

Well thats the standard we need to reach folks. Bring on Guus!

If Drogba would ever be up for a game in his life, it'd be revenge for 2009 - I think if we had been there he'd single handedly destroy them. :P

Man United what an embarrassment. City could have done better.

I never doubted Jose's strategy against them. He's beaten them with us and Inter that way. Its probably the only consistent way to beat them.

Hahahaha gotta say I'm really enjoying this.

That freekick play they tried was awesome. Wish we tried things like that rather than lumping it over it posts sometimes.

He's probably my favourite Barca player in terms of ability. Easy to get sucked into the Messi bandwagon but the way Xavi can just command a mid field and engineer all their plays is astonishing. He's been their engine for years. Suppose Lampard is our closest comparison.

Really boring game so far. United are trying to strangle their play by interrupting phases with set pieces. Park is on Messi duty, wonder how that'll pan out.