Barca for the Treble. One down. One legend also gone. FORCABARCA

Perez is really trying to revive his days where he spends millions of dollars in the transfer market only to underachieve in all competitions with Real. Lord help that team if Ancelotti leaves and gets replaces with Rafa.

Thank goodness that mess of a season is over. With Ancelotti taking a year out there seems to be little to be gained from ditching LvG but it's been a shambles. On paper £200m worth of players for a six 6 point improvement on last year while most of our competition went backwards isn't good enough. That around 2/3s of that related to attacking and creative talent and we've ended up scoring fewer goals than last year isn't good enough. Saying that 4th is the be all and end all belies that our record from last season would have sufficed this year - and I think we're all agreed that last season wasn't good enough.

On the pitch there've been barely half a dozen performances worthy of the term. Twice injuries forced van Gaal into a system that worked and both times he broke them through his obsession with control and conscious vacillation over creativity and imagination. Seemingly this is to create defensive stability yet we've made more mistakes leading to shots than anyone else in the league - either it's failed or it's a lost cause and we should be focusing attention elsewhere. Countless results have gone our way through factors largely or wholly beyond the control of the manager, be it the ineptitude of the opposition, the unrelenting brilliance of De Gea or sheer dumb luck. The league was turgid; the cups an embarrassment. Trips to MK Dons, Leicester, Yeovil and Cambridge should yield a better return than one win and an aggregate of 5-9 against. Talk of a title challenge immediately turned into the first time we've had three losses on the bounce without scoring since 88/89.

Despite the lavish 'Gaalactio' project the squad is still lacking in areas and unbalanced. While he has built on the rejuvenation of Young that began last season, Rafael and Evans (among others) have gone backwards and/or been sidelined and now appear expendable, despite the questionable performances of some of their replacements. Despite the disruption caused by the unprecedented churn last summer LvG seems keep to replicate it again this close season, which will please Woodward's vanity project. Record sums have again been pledged for spending despite the failure of the headline signings. The story goes that van Gaal just needs to get his players in - for £300m of additions to an already talented squad any half decent manager should be able to cobble something together.

The supposed focus on youth heralded in the midst of an injury crisis and the wake of a league cup tie now appears isolated to Paddy McNair (sub H/T). The likes of Lingard, Blackett, Pereira, and Reece James have as many loan moves as appearances between them since January (three from the bench totalling 40 mins) even as CL football was secured. Januzaj was given less than half as many starts as last season. Despite the protests that Welbeck's sale elevated Wilson's position in the pecking order, he made only a pathetic two starts, even as his peers were missing, misfiring or misused. Overlooking their talents in lieu of underperforming stellar names contrasts with LvG's much vaunted supposed disinclination towards reputation. Both are now afterthoughts likely to be loaned to make space for an expensive replacement next season. The withdrawal from the Milk Cup will likely do little to remedy the lack of talent now coming through.

The football on display was turgid, I've said it plenty of times throughout the season that we're doing worse than we did under Moyes and it's true. Far too many times we've had to reply on David De Gea saving us and he's probably won us a good twenty points this season which just isn't acceptable and we wouldn't have been anywhere near a Champions League spot without him. There's no creativity in the team - a team that consists of Herrera, Mata,Di Maria, Blind and Carrick - and we're easy to defend against because we create so few chances. I know we all poke fun about how boring Chelsea is, but we're just as boring as they are and we do not produce the results that they do to even remotely justify it.

If this sounds a bit doom-heavy it's because I can see few positives going into next season. The 'philosophy' was supposed to take three months, then four, then six, then a season to embed. Some of the quotes from the players suggest it has, which is a worry as it can seemingly extend no further than playing within ourselves, handing the opposition a few chances and hoping we'll scrape something out of nowhere, a set piece, or a diagonal to Fellaini. The false dawn of improvement was drummed out of the team six weeks ago. Positive football seems anathema. The squad should only need minor surgery but a complete overhaul appears to be planned - eight months since the last. Extravagant spending on household names will be the answer - just as it was last summer. This undermines the supposed consistency of persevering with van Gaal - as does his pending retirement in two years time - though without a viable alternative it would seem a gamble to dispense with a manager who at least has successfully tread water. I'm worried that sadly that is all we are likely to get next season unless van Gaal steps up his operation markedly.

Watford sacked their manager (their fourth manager of the season) because they wouldn't give him a pay rise, this is despite him getting them promoted to the Premiership.

Questions to those who care and who want to answer -

Will Bournemouth, Watford or Norwich City stay up next season?

Are FIFA corrupted shit or not?

Will Arsenal win another trophy this weekend? Or will the Villians upset the odds?

Who do you see your supported team signing this summer?

Juventus or Barcelona?

Can Real Madrid get a grip next season?

And just who will become the next Sunderland manager?!?

1. I think Norwich will probably stay up. I can honestly see Bournemouth hiring Harry Redknapp in some form this summer, sacking Howe around Christmas when they're struggling and make Redknapp the manager, just seems written in the stars.

2. Of course they are, been known for years.

3. I think Arsenal will probably do it.

4.  Memphis Depay Nah, outside of him I'm not even remotely sure; we'll be going for CB's, right-back and a striker (please god) at least along with somebody being able to fill in for Michael Carrick and probably a goalkeeper but I've no idea who we will go for.
I can see us signing Gundogan although Benzema would be my dream signing.


5. Barcelona will win. They're the best team in the world at the moment and Messi/Neymar/Suarez is pretty unstoppable at the moment. Granted, it'll be alot closer than most people probably think it will be as Juventus have a very good side in having the best midfield in the world, a solid defense with a great keeper and Tevez/Moratta up front. I imagine Juventus are gonna defend this game and try sneaking a goal and they'll do better than Bayern, PSG and City did against Barca as they won't be as naive as they were, still expect Barca to win though, had them pegged as CL winners for a while now.

5. In a word? No. I've said before that both Madrid and Barca are two laughably badly run clubs with jokes of presidents that sack managers the moment they don't win anything - even if they finish second in the league. Perez is Perez. He'll spend buckets of money this season on players they probably don't need (and getting De Gea on the cheap) and creating a further unbalance in the team. Madrid will (may) get a grip when they get somebody other than Perez in charge, which will probably happen when the same thing happens to them what happened to Chelsea - managers turning them down because there's no security to their job. How Perez genuenly believes Rafa Benetiz in 2015 could do a better job than Carlo Ancelotti I'll never know.

6. John Craver. I jest, Big Sam getting the job would be a good appointment for them, really good manager.

Load of reports from actual reliable sources that De Gea is pretty much gone to Real Madrid, for around 25-30 million, should be confirmed in a few days or something apparently.

Was always gonna happen but still, we should have tied him down to a longer contract long before this shit happened, fuck sake. The fee is also ridiculous given he's the second best keeper in the world but that's what happens when you let a player have a year left on his contract.

I guess Ander Herrera is gonna have to be my new favorite United player now

Netherlands pulled off one of the most epic collapse I've ever seen.

Benzema is ours

John the Castist wrote:

Benzema is ours

All I'm seeing is Benzema to Utd

Dark Demon wrote:

John the Castist wrote:

Benzema is ours

All I'm seeing is Benzema to Utd

All I'm seeing is everyone on the market to Utd...

Devan Dubian wrote:

Dark Demon wrote:

John the Castist wrote:

Benzema is ours

All I'm seeing is Benzema to Utd

All I'm seeing is everyone on the market to Utd...

Can't wait for Messi to be wearing a united shirt next season getting fed balls by Herrera and Mata

Dark Demon wrote:

Devan Dubian wrote:

Dark Demon wrote:

John the Castist wrote:

Benzema is ours

All I'm seeing is Benzema to Utd

All I'm seeing is everyone on the market to Utd...

Can't wait for Messi to be wearing a united shirt next season getting fed balls by Herrera and Mata

And what about De Gea wearing a Madrid jersey? 

Depay looked fantastic today too...

AND PRESENTING....


YOUR 2015 CHAMPION LEAGUE WINNERS....

AND PROUD OWNERS OF THE FIRST EVER SECOND TREBLE........


F...C...

BARCELONA !!!!



We did it.

http://twitter.com/SL_Benfica/status/609300200272855041

LOL

LOL signing an experienced player for free when yall pay 12 million loan fees

An experienced player who's well-known to under-preform out of laziness and typically being out of shape and could barely get into the QPR team last season, making 7 appearances for a team that finished bottom of the league.

Not sure why you bring the Falcao thing up, unless you wanna gladly point me in the direction of when I ever praised that move, but ok.

I trust any Luis Filipe Viera signings because 99.9% of the time they are good, so I trust in the Adel Taarabt signing

'typically' 

Lets ignore the rest of it too, super-duper awesome signing, Adel Tararabt, can't get into a relegated team but bah gawd!!!!!