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.”
Micheál Schlingermann grew up in County Mayo and represented his County in the 2009 All Ireland minor football final at Croke Park against Armagh.
And your point is ….
heineken ….
Poor performance from City.
Alan Bennett was a big loss in defence but credit to Sligo came to Cork and got a unexpected win.
Huge game against Bohs on Friday night.
Grimes deserves a chance in goal now for City!
Schlingermann and cretaro are both Irish with Irish accents but they are not Irish names. Anyone know where those two families are originally from?
Cretaro’s father is from Italy
Cretaro is from Tubbercurry Co. Sligo and Schlingerman is from kiltimagh Co. Mayo
Would have been huge game if City had won. League gone now, need to concentrate on trying to finish 2nd and have a good cup run.Dundalk way ahead of City in class.Maybe 3 or 4 years time might start catching them but not at the moment. Hope there won,t be any “european hangover” excuses.Sligo better team tonight, 2 chances 2 goals. City 4 or 5 chances no goals. Bad sign when City fans begging for penalties; if you can;t score from open play its not saying much.Negative rant i know but its hard to be positve leaving the Cross tonight.
Jesus they’re only 6 points behind. They also have a game in hand. With Dundalk having European football to concentrate on possibly they’ll slip up in the league and maybe cork might seize their chance. But my point is…..the league is far from over.
I know Sean,but why should we have to wait for someone to “slip up” or be tired from european games? I,d like to see City win it on merit, fair scrap from start to finish.A bit old school maybe but thats my opinion. Even if they win it now, people will say its only because Dundalk had so many european games.
Srfc
That spoofer Caulfield is the one holding Cork back. He’s a non league manager. They have the players, but City will win nothing as long as he’s in charge.
What would any other manager do any differently?