UEFA Champions League

[Rappy Veteran]

Can Arsenal score 4 in the second half?

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Can Arsenal score 4 in the second half?

Not a chance, game over, sadly for the neutrals :(

[Stingray]

I HATE porto. I hope they loose 5-0.

You hate Porto because they stomp on Benfica every year LOL.

[84Mark]

Game over.

[84Mark]

That was flippin harsh on Fletcher.

[acnpt]

That was flippin harsh on Fletcher.

He got the ball too!! :no:

[Rappy Veteran]

That was flippin harsh on Fletcher.

...and very stupid on his part Arsenal need 5 goals just go a bit easy on Fabregas when challenging him.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Feel sorry for Fletch if that doesn't get overturned, bit harsh to miss the final.

...and very stupid on his part Arsenal need 5 goals just go a bit easy on Fabregas when challenging him.

How can you blame the player if he wins the balls? Instinctual challenge to try and prevent a goal, you get it wrong you're off, your fault, but not if you get it right.

[84Mark]

Feel sorry for Fletch if that doesn't get overturned, bit harsh to miss the final.

No appeals apparently.

[Mike]

Feel sorry for Fletch if that doesn't get overturned, bit harsh to miss the final.

Which can't be done which seems rather stupid

[Rappy Veteran]

No appeals apparently.

Yeh he just walked off...Ferguson looked ****ed tho.

[84Mark]

I meant no appeals to over-turn the red card - but yeah - Ferguson wont be silent about that decission.

[Martyn]

Embarrassing performance from Arsenal that. Quite simply pathetic, they had no fight in them at all.

For all of Arsenal's supposedly brilliant attacking football, I am struggling to remember a shot from them over the two games.

[Subject Delta]

Yep they where poor, and it looks like there's no chance of them holding united up in the league either. Very poor performance from the ref though, Fletcher should never have been sent off for that

[Beastage]

Embarrassing performance from Arsenal that. Quite simply pathetic, they had no fight in them at all.

For all of Arsenal's supposedly brilliant attacking football, I am struggling to remember a shot from them over the two games.

I agree, Arsenal played too slow and with too many high balls directed at crowded United defense.

No quick one,two , no power shooting , I don't understand what was going in their heads.

[Rappy Veteran]

So who's going to win tomorrow? :p

Come on Barca :shifty:

[idioot]

For all of Arsenal's supposedly brilliant attacking football, I am struggling to remember a shot from them over the two games.

The squad of this season is too poor. With Arshavin we might have better chance in the league, assuming no one slips ! :no:

[Weld_El_7aj]

Good performance by ManU against a very poor Arsenal, I was hoping the gunners would make a great game and give us sum show, but the didn't appeared.

So who's going to win tomorrow? :p

Come on Barca :shifty:

Hope Bar?a makes it tomorrow even if it'll be so hard, and with the missing defenders and Henry not at his best harder, but we still have a great team to try to take the ticket to Roma,

so Com on Bar?a!!!!!

[nothuman]

We are legendary! Ronaldo alone is better than the all Arsenal team.

A what a poor decision by the ref, the penalty was inevitable but a red card ? Really ? That's a bit too harsh for Fletcher, he won't play the final and given the huge performance he did tonight and last week it's a shame and I'm fracking sad for him.

[Subject Delta]

Actually neither where merited. Fletcher clearly got the ball, therefore no penalty or red card.

[gregb0b]

So who's going to win tomorrow? :p

Come on Barca :shifty:

Should be interesting :)

[Green_Eye]

Very pathetic display of football by Arsenal.

However I am getting really sick of this "please do not touch me" kind of football, perfectly displayed by the Ronaldo. Everybody is is scared to make a good challenge because they get a yellow or red for the most simple tackles. Fletcher has been absolutely robbed that was no where near a red card and was certainly not a penalty, on that note Roberto Rosetti displayed some of the most abysmal refereeing I have seen in a long time and has fed this "no contact" type idea that has been growing in football culture...

I realise that being a ref is not easy but he just made so many bad calls this game it was a joke. C. Ronaldo's free kick was a very good goal but I really question the challenge that got him that free kick. He just went down too easily and in my opinion its unfair.

On that note I do believe Man U deserved the win purely on the fact that Arsenal played like they did not want this win...

For the sake of football as a whole I really hope the new generation of players and ref's alike grow a pair :hmmm:

[Subject Delta]

The rewards for cheating are sadly pretty high, hence a lot of players do it, but IMO Ronaldo and Drogba are the worst.

I am an advocate of bringing Video replays into football, it has helped a lot of times in cricket, rugby ETC, and I feel it would just eliminate injustices like this.

Manchester United's Darren Fletcher will miss the Champions League final after Uefa confirmed that his red card against Arsenal will stand.

Fletcher was given a straight red card for an adjudged foul on Cesc Fabregas in the box as United won the second leg of the Champions League semi-final 3-1.

Uefa has confirmed that no appeal can be made against the decision, no matter what the referee says in his report.

United will face Chelsea or Barcelona in the final in Rome on 27 May.

"Manchester United have the right to protest the decision within 24 hours of the match," said a Uefa spokesman.

"However, the protest is only admissible if the referee made an error and mistakenly identified and cautioned or sent off the wrong player.

"There cannot be an appeal against a factual decision taken by the referee and there is nothing to indicate that the referee made a mistake in identifying Fletcher as the player he penalised last night."

Early goals killed off game - Ferguson

After Tuesday's game, United manager Sir Alex Ferguson described the prospect of Fletcher missing out on the final as "a tragedy" but did not criticise Italian referee Roberto Rosetti.

"You can see the ball has moved in a different direction but we shouldn't ask the referee," stated Ferguson.

"He's competent and fair enough to look at it himself possibly. Apparently, you can't appeal and if that's the case it's disappointing for the boy.

"Darren's one of the most honest players in the game and to miss the final is a tragedy."

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger also insisted the red card was "very harsh" after television pictures showed Fletcher played the ball cleanly.

Source

Normally I'll never say anything pro-united but Fletcher was simply robbed of his big chance, what a shame. Uefa clearly need to have a rethink of their appeals procedure, as unjust reds can be overturned in most other competitions

[Martyn]

I think that if a player dives or play acts he should be automatically banned for five games based on video analysis. It would be hard to send people off for offenses like that during a game, as it is almost impossible for referees to judge play acting at full speed.

It has to be clamped down. I know there are a lot of loop hole's in the above opinion, and I know you will love to point them out, but a variant on something like that would work.

It is hard though to clamp down on cheating which can be hard to detect, but the only way to do so is to come down hard on the cheaters and stamp it out of the game. 10 years ago you never had this fairy poncy stuff that goes on now, Shankly would be turning in his grave.

[nothuman]

NAIROBI - AN ARSENAL fan in football-mad Kenya hanged himself following his team's 4-1 aggregate drubbing by arch-rivals Manchester United in the Champions League semi-final, police said on Wednesday.

Suleiman Alphonso Omondi, a 29-year-old Kenyan living in the capital Nairobi's Embakasi neighbourhood, hanged himself in his Arsenal shirt late on Tuesday after the match, police said.

'We were watching the match at Bamba 70 pub, and when Arsenal was defeated, Suleiman just walked out in protest and he was crying,' Calvin Otieno, one of his friends, told AFP.

'We didn't know he was going to hang himself until this morning when we received the reports and came here to find his body at the balcony,' Mr Otieno said outside the deceased's home.

Arsenal slumped to a 3-1 defeat at home in the second leg of the Champions League semi-final, capping a disappointing season for the Gunners who were already out of the Premier League title race early in the season.

Football-related domestic tragedies are frequent in the region, where English clubs enjoy passionate following and European games draw more attention than national and continental games. -- AFP

source: Straits Times

:cry: :cry: