MANCHESTER UNITED MANAGER Alex Ferguson says there will be no repeat of the club’s disastrous Champions League campaign of last season.
United were eliminated from the competition at the group stage after being beaten Swiss side Basel.
That result capped off a poor performance in a group the then-defending English Premier League champions were expected to win, with Benfica and Romanian newcomers Otelul Galati the other teams in their pool.
United had previously reached the final in three of the previous four editions of the tournament Ferguson has warned Europe his side will not make the same mistakes again in 2012/13.
“That definitely won’t happen next season. There’s no chance of that,” he said when asked a potential repeat of the unexpected early exit.
“Over the last few years, we’ve used the group stage as an opportunity to play the youngsters. Last season it backfired on us.
“We changed the team too much. We won’t be doing that this season.
“I just think we were careless. The killer was the game against Basel at home (which ended 3-3). We could have been 5-1 up at half-time but were really careless in that game.
“We were unlucky against Benfica at home because we played well, but that Basel game was a real killer for us. They were just an ordinary team and they showed that when they played Bayern Munich.
Lucky
“They were lucky against Bayern at home (Basel won 1-0 in the first leg of their last-16 tie) and they were lucky against us also. Bayern battered them (winning the second leg 7-0).”
Ferguson is confident he has a squad capable of emulating the United teams of 1999 and 2008 by delivering another Champions League crown to Old Trafford next season.
When quizzed on the subject, he replied: “Oh yes, definitely. Absolutely. There’s no doubt about that.
“Don’t forget that Nemanja Vidic only played six games for us (in the Premier League) last season, while Darren Fletcher was a loss too.”
As much as I despise the man. He probably is right can’t see united going out at the group stage next season but he is losing his marbles if he genuinely thinks that united team can win the champions league. It must grate every united fan that for all their dominance in England they never dominated in Europe like all the true great European teams. When his cycle of one every ten years comes around he will be 76.
Well what a surprise a Liverpool fan commenting on a United Story. I think you should worry about you’re own team instead. They didnt even qualify for the Champions League for the last 3 seasons.
Every Liverpool article is riddled with united “fans” posts. Get over yourself.
Btw, delighted with the Liverpool performance versus Toronto this evening, a raft of very promising youngsters coming through. Time to look forward with these lads now. Posting this here as the journal haven’t deemed it important enough to give the match report
Haha yeah, pot, kettle, black, you love your own team so much that your name relates to us instead, thats just sad!
Just like Fergie commenting on other teams. Liverpool fans are generally more intelligent and more capable of commenting on other teams because their not up their own arse.