Prior to the match last night I forcast that Man U would get beat,the game would be scrappy and the atmosphere would not be of the `edge of your seat variety`. Statistics may back me up,I could be wrong tho, but over the years in Europe and also internationaly have you seen a consistent level of performance from our club`s/country when they play on a pitch surrounded by a running track, far from the maddening crowd

One of the main attractions of the EPL was the speed , end to end stuff and the excitement generated by a crowd close to the action. I find apart from the odd game that matches played in the type of ground as Bayern`s tonite tend to leave me cold, the piches are the same size the influx of foreign players in out teams of players who have played in this type of stadia is increasing, so why if indeed there is a why!

I have my own ideas on this but am interested on other views.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001

Answers

Good habitats die hard !!!!

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001

You may have a point Buff - certainly Manure surprisingly just didn't seem to be up for the game last night, particularly at the beginning. You'd have expected them to come flying out of the blocks and get at Bayern, but they were tentative, sloppy organisationally and defensively - ie. not reacting for ages to not having a right winger in Becks place tracking the Munich LWB, Tarnuat, that cost them the first goal and almost two others - and just never seemed to really get going offensively. I suppose the latter was at least partly down to Bayern being two up after five minutes, which meant they could just sit back and soak up the pressure.

Maybe the lack of opposition fans in close proximity winding them up was a contributory factor - certainly I got the impression that what "atmosphere" there was in the stadium was whipped up almost entirely by the PA Announcer and the electronic score-board, in US Baseball style.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001