Thoroughly underwhelming game last night.
Brave team selection from Ferguson that seemed to make Real scared to commit their fullbacks high up the pitch. That then meant that Real had no width when Ronaldo and Di Maria went inside. Through most of the second half, Man Utd were barely having to defend the width of their penalty area, never mind the width of the pitch.
On the odd occasion Real did get someone one-on-one in a wide area, they almost invariably beat their man and put in a decent cross.
That lack of width meant the whole game was bogged down in the middle of the pitch and Real had no chance of moving the ball around quickly enough to drag Utd out of shape in order to create space.
When there was space in the first half - due to Utd leaving too big a gap between defence and midfield - Ozil wasn't able to take advantage because the movement ahead of him, generally from Benzema, was utterly atrocious.
Decent enough performance from Man Utd's point of view, though. They contained Real pretty comfortably and could have scored more goals.
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Don't understand the English press bigging up De Gea after last night as if it's some sort of coming of age moment.
Sure, he made a good save or two, but everyone already knew he was capable of that.
He came off his line two or three times in the game for crosses and didn't deal with any of them convincingly.
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