Dejanx7:

For the last time, I'm not wanting United to lose and i respect SAF very much and dread the day when he retires, im just trying to tell that our midfield is boring and without "that spark".... I would never want for United to lose.... i was eating my heart out when city scored for 3:2... If im criticising that does NOT mean that i want United to lose everything and everywhere... All im saying is that IF we lose this match MAYBE it would not be that bad in the long run... But hey maybe this will be Cleverley's year... Hope dies last...

Even hoping the team plays poorly or gets steamrolled is a poor way to show support.

do we have the world class players to achieve this? Or is it tactics that lets us down? For me its a bit of both. I watched the valerenga game sunday, and from what I saw was that we havent changed anything in terms of style from last season, everything went through the wings, cross after cross again came to no prevail. Will it work against the top teams? My viewpoint is no.

another problem we seem to have islack of real competition, Carrick will always be our main midfielder, even when he only plays well in only 1/5 games. Anderson, nor Cleverley have pushed enough to achieve this, mainly down to injuries. Same goes with Rooney, no real consisten performers to push him. I said when we got beaten by barca comfortably in 2009 even with Ronaldo that we needed to buy a world class midfielder, most of us did.

we are a very good side with a very good squad, but for my liking as a top team in europe we have far too few match winners. I for one think these players have to step up their game this season if we are to be the best again, Carrick, Rafael, Young, Hernandez, Nani, Valencia has to score more, Evra.

mimi112:

I don't want us to do poorly against Barca and definitely not lose but I think last seasons good preseason results did flatter to deceive a little bit.

We over-hyped and under-hyped players

We ignored core areas

We made mistakes with fitness

We made a lot of excuses and got found out later in the season

I have a feeling tonight is going to be a draw but it should also show distinctly, weak areas and strong areas

Yes I know its preseason but somethings stand out

me23:

I hope Barca outplay us and steamrolls our midfield.SAF obviously needs to see Barca hammer us again so he can see with his own eyes(for the 3rd time) that we are nowhere near Barca and have not gotten any closer since 2009 when SAF said he would try to close the gap on them.It has not happen,so maybe 3rd times the charm.

I don't want us to do poorly against Barca and definitely not lose but I think last seasons good preseason results did flatter to deceive a little bit.

We over-hyped and under-hyped players

We ignored core areas

We made mistakes with fitness

We made a lot of excuses and got found out later in the season

I have a feeling tonight is going to be a draw but it should also show distinctly, weak areas and strong areas

Yes I know its preseason but somethings stand out

Richard McMullan:

and there we have it lads - the modern day united fan :) jesus christ this place gets worse by the day lol

Richard McMullan:

and there we have it lads - the modern day united fan :) jesus christ this place gets worse by the day lol

Dejanx7:

I'm not saying that we must lose, but play badly, because if we play good and win then we might get the feeling of content. If we lose against Barca maybe Fergie will realise that we are average at best and need to bring more better players than we have.... Kagawa was a good signing and he will shine here same as Powell but he has time to improve, but these two alone are not enough... We dont have THE spark in the team... Once i used to watch every United game because of Beckham free kicks or later Ronaldo with his trickery, now i only see Scholes (he is brilliant no doubt, but not exciting) using his long balls to Valencia who then runs with it and tries to cross in over and over again over the period of time... Im still watching every single United game even friendlies, but the only thing/player that excites me is that maybe opponents will shoot alot at our goal and De Gea will pull off an amazing save :P Thanks for reading.

Aejr:

I can understand why some of you would call him out for making a post like this. But last season we found ourselves in a similar position, with the fans calling for new signings in midfield which never materialized. We beat Barca 2-1 and Sir Alex's comments a few days after the match suggested "we're closing the gap on Barcelona", and how did that work out? The strangest thing about it is that Mike Phelan, in a press conference yesterday said basically the same thing.

Whether we get 1 shot in the whole game or 20 shots in the whole game, this will prove to be more important than the scoreline in the end imo.

Richard McMullan:

nah i get what your saying sorry. i just don't think a pre season friendly against barcelona is going to influence the manager into rushing buying new players to be honest.