Fergie gets his tactics wrong as United lose in Munich

After going 1-0 through Wayne Rooney inside the first minute; you’d be forgiven for thinking United would go on to win the game. The tactics would be fairly simple: Allow Bayern to press forward and then hit them on the break. The deficit would force them to throw men forward and the likes of Nani, Park and Rooney could exploit the gaps left at the back as Bayern pushed for an equalizer.

Not only did we do that, we did far more. And if not for Nani’s deflected cross dropping perfectly for Rooney in the first minute the situation we find ourselves in could have been much worse.

I first raised an eyebrow when I saw the starting line up. The back four picks itself and so does the goalkeeper. And in important away games the midfield trio of Michael Carrick, Darren Fletcher and Paul Scholes has proven itself on numerous occasions. It was on the wings where I found myself questioning Sir Alex Ferguson‘s tactics.

Nani was played on the right wing up against the inexperienced Holger Badstuber, a centre back by trade, playing at left back. He was also tasked with tracking back to help Gary Neville deal with Franck Ribery.

On the opposite wing Park was asked to keep tabs on marauding full back Phillip Lahm, also playing out of position.

Admittedly I don’t have a legitimate claim at being the best manager in the world as Sir Alex does, but in my mind it would have made more sense to switch our wingers around.

Park’s defensive qualities would have been much better serve on the right wing to contain Ribery, while Nani on the left could have exploited the space left as Lahm inevitably pushed forward and left gaps.

As it happened, Park was rather ineffective and Nani, while being one of our better players, didn’t get too many opportunities to put balls into the box.

That’s not my only gripe though. After scoring so early we wee second best for the majority of the game. Our tried and tested midfield trio were chasing shadows as Van Bommel and Pranjic dominated the centre of the pitch.

Sir Alex’s answer to this? Take a midfielder off and replace him with a striker. If it wasn’t bad enough that one striker wasn’t getting any service due to the lack of possession in midfield, we now had two strikers not getting any service, added to the fact that we were even more lightweight in midfield and forced even further onto the back foot.

In the end we got what we deserved. Bayern will consider themselves fortunate at the way they equalized. Ribery’s free kick would most likely not have troubled the excellent Edwin van der Sar had it not took a wicked deflection, but in truth it was no more than they deserved. And when Patrice Evra abandoned all sense to allow Olic to stroll through our defence and score the winner, it was symptomatic of the lackadaisical, walk along the beach attitude that flowed through the team for the entire 90 minutes.

Fergie was tactically outplayed by Louis van Gaal, and the players were outplayed and outclassed on the pitch.

All is not lost though. There’s still at least another 90 minutes to play to turn the result around, and with an all important away goal there’s every chance we’ll do just that. But the tactics and the performance need to dramatically improve if stand any chance of getting to the semi finals.

Bayern will be a much stronger team for the second leg, with Arjen Robben expected to return from injury, along with Bastian Schweinsteiger and Mario Gomez – who was only fit to play 20 minutes tonight. United are also expected to be considerably weaker too. Wayne Rooney limped of at the end, apparently with an ankle strain that will rule him out of the Chelsea match at the weekend and possibly the return leg with Bayern next week.

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