Nigeria Content Online

What United must not do

With an away goal
plus the 90,000 strong-crowd at Old Trafford, Manchester United have it
all – but they must not press down the accelerator when Chelsea get
unto the pitch today. A 0-0 result qualifies the Red Devils for the
semi-finals and probably a tie against German side Schalke 04. United
made eight changes to their team for the visit of Fulham on Saturday
and won comfortably 2-0. So the players that are going to be in action
today are rested and ready – which might actually be a good thing
considering that the players will be able to make lung-busting runs
behind the defence of Chelsea and also recover in time to defend. So
the key to victory lies in being patient and making sure that the
players deliver the right pass and keep the ball the majority of the
time. Chelsea will want to set a high tempo and a lot of balls will be
delivered aerially to Didier Drogba with Nicolas Anelka and Florent
Malouda hoping for knockdowns.

United must always
ensure that they have a free man handy in front of Nemanja Vidic and
Rio Ferdinand – even though Ferdinand played the first leg very well,
reading the body language of the strikers very well.

Alex Ferguson –
“Wayne will be fresher, that’s for sure. Missing the game on Saturday
has given him six days of good preparation for tomorrow. At this time
of the year, fatigue comes into it and it’s one of the reasons I made
changes on Saturday. We felt it was important – not only to give
freshness but to give some players game time.”

What Chelsea must do

The cliché – ‘No
retreat, no surrender’‑ aptly describes the situation that the Blues
find themselves and from the referee’s signal to start the game,
Chelsea have to be on the front foot – seeking to score and that brings
in itself a lot of questions for the manager, Carlo Ancelotti. Should
he revert to the tried and trusted 4-3-3 over the 4-4-2, which was
employed last week at Stamford Bridge? It showed in the latter phase of
the first leg that immediately they switched formations with Mikel Obi
coming on for Jose Bosingwa, they were able to overwhelm United in
Midfield. Frank Lampard now had the latitude to bomb forward on his
customary late runs. If Ancelotti wants anything out of this match,
then he has to flood the midfield to put more pressure on Michael
Carrick and Ryan Giggs, though United should line up in a 4-5-1
formation and rely on the counterattack. Another question that must be
answered before kick-off is whether to pair Didier Drogba and Fernando
Torres again? The answer should be Drogba over Torres, who is still
finding his feet with the midfielders, unsure where to deliver the ball
to the Spaniard. They already know the strengths and movements of
Drogba. Chelsea need to find the first goal in this match or it is
curtains – if that is not already the case!

Youssi Benayoun –
“The thing left is to try to win a trophy and the only one we can win
is the Champions League. If we win this game it will change everything.
I’m sure if we beat United we’ll go to the end and win the trophy. They
are a big team with a great manager but we have belief we can do it,
despite losing at home. We have to give everything and try our best.”

Fact: Torres, who
is yet to score for Chelsea, has gone 13 games and 817 minutes without
a goal for club and country, his longest drought since a 17-match
streak while at Club Atlético de Madrid in 2005.

Barcelona looking forward

No one (except the
punters) believes that there will be a Dombass miracle today. Dombass
Arena is the 5-star stadium where Shakhtar Donetsk will welcome FC
Barcelona tonight hoping to turn around a 1-5 deficit. Though they say
anything is possible in football, it will be a catastrophic decline if
it were achieved by the Ukrainian club – moreover Barcelona still has
the effervescent Lionel Messi in their ranks. So will Pep Guardiola use
the main team or rest some key players ahead of the Classico this
weekend at the Santiago Bernebeu, but that will be disrespecting Mircea
Lucescu and his team. Though the mountain just got steeper with an
injury to one of his key defenders and captain, Dario Srna, who has
been ruled out for two weeks. Srna now joins Olexandr Kucher and Dmytro
Chygrynskiy on the injury list while left-back, Razvan Rat, is
suspended. Shakhtar also suffered their first defeat at the new Dondass
Arena, losing 1-0 to FC Obolon.

The Catalans are also shorn of Carles Puyol, Eric Abidal and Bojan Krkic while Andres Iniesta is suspended.