Olympique Marseille vs Manchester United 
So we were blasted for our scrappy 1-0 win over non-league Crawley Town and Fergie was self-critical over it. Trust me, it was just all for show-and-tell. We had to play the diplomacy card by not belittling the domestic cups in the public media lest we incur the wrath of the FA.
However, you and I know deep inside that these cups means nothing to us any more. Cup Winners' Cup used to still be a viable consolation but now that it's been scrapped and relegated to the UEFA Cup (now known as Europa League), we are not really concerned with it any more except perhaps, a nice decorative piece in the new season team photo?
Allow me to illustrate, last season (2009/2010), we were runners-up in the EPL, we won the League Cup and we opened the new season winning the Charity Shield.
Tell me, if we were to remove one of the 3 above-mentioned, which would have made a difference?
That's right, the runners-up spot out-weighs the other two combined. Who cares if we lose the League Cup and/or Charity Shield? But turn it around, it would have been disastrous if we lose the Champions League spot that comes with the 2nd-placing.
Now, turning our attention to the game ahead. We are back in the Champions League after a nice little winter break as we begin our second round of the ECL campaign.
We will be traveling to Marseille and I expect them to be playing a very defensive game today
We had the good fortune of an easy FA Cup fixture the weekend before using our B-team to host Crawley Town, thus leaving us with a full A-squad to feature today.
Carrick, Evra, Fletcher, Scholes, Rooney, Bebartov, Van der Sar, Nani, Smalling and Vidic should be on the Starting XI. Valencia while reported to have recovered from the horrific injury earlier in the season, will not be selected. The matador from Ecuador is still a few reserve game matches before fully match-fit.
The bookies are making ManUtd give Marseille a 0.25-ball handicap and a slightly more favourable decimal odds of 1.925 to beat it. The word around town however is in Marseille's favour not only winning the 0.25-ball handicap but also Marseille to win in the 1X2 category.
The punters however do not agree as their wagers are 70% in favour of ManUtd beating the asian handicap.
While we have been plagued with the away-game jinx all season, this bad luck somehow does not port over to the Champions League. Even if this game ends in a draw, it will still be good since we will have the home advantage in the return-leg.
The way I see it, a draw is in the cards but I think due to Deschamp's lack of fire power options up front, we should win this game as I don't see ourselves firing blanks today and keeping a clean sheet.
JayWalk's 2010/2011 Track Record to-date (22 Feb 2011) : P98-W51-L47
- Voxeros
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