When Will We Ever Learn? (Copenhagen 1 - Manchester United 0)

Alex Ferguson for some inexplicable reason decided to rest Rio and Scholes, after injuries had already ruled out Giggs, Saha and Neville. We were on auto-pilot for most of the match until the Danes, somewhat luckily, scored in the 73rd minute. We then threw men forward, but the battle was already lost.

Had we shown any kind of endeavour prior to the goal, we would not have lost this game. Why does Ferguson time and time again field weakened teams in the Champions League is beyond me.

Flash back to 2 seasons ago, when we fielded weakened teams after qualifying. The result was that we ended up in 2nd in the table, faced AC Milan in the second round and promptly got dumped. This time round, we decided to up the level of stupidity by fielding a weaken side even before we assured ourselves of qualification.

As for the performance of individual players, there's not much to say. Like the Mickey Mouse Cup game a week ago, we played down to our opponents. Most of the team was sleep-walking thru the game.

Special mention to Michael Carrick who continued his piss poor invisible man act. Besides passing the ball diagonally, he was not much use on the pitch. Being paired with O'Shea, I expected him to push forward much more while O'Shea played the defensive midfield role. Instead, for most parts of the game, O'Shea pushed forward while Carrick continued losing the ball. I know it's alot of expect him to live up to that ridiculous price tag, but I'm really running out of patience on him to even be a good player. Overrated, overpriced.

To make matters worse, Evil Ronaldo surfaced for a brief moment in the game. Thankfully there wasn't much time on the clock for Evil Ronaldo to totally manifest itself.

Let's hope that stubborn mule of a manager learns from his mistake. I can't remember when was the last time we played well in a European game away from Old Trafford. I'm definitely not holding my breath here.