Meulensteen on why Manchester United failed to counter Barcelona's hegemonny

Rene Mulensteen speaks with manager Sir Alex Ferguson during a training session

In an interview with Daily Telegraph, Meulensteen focuses on Manchester United’s Champions League failure against Barcelona twice in space of three years. Manchester United lost to Barcelona twice in the final- in 2009 and 2011.

About the first sting, Meulensteen had to say this: “In Rome [in 2009], it was a closer game but we didn’t utilise the qualities we had at our disposal. We had Paul Scholes, one of the best midfielders in the world, on the bench. With Barcelona, you need players who can keep the ball.

“At Wembley [two years later], our preparation had been brilliant but we lost it in half-time. There was an argument going on too long between players. I don’t think we used half-time to reiterate what we’d done all week. Look at the first 15 minutes of the second half, that’s where Barca try to kill off teams. They did. We didn’t start the second half the way we should and it cost us. People forgot what we’d done all week.’’

His former club will take on Chelsea this Monday, which will see Jose Mourinho back to Old Trafford five months after he defeated Manchester United in the Champions League while he was still at the helm of Real Madrid. That Champions League tie created huge controversy as Wayne Rooney was left on the bench by Alex Ferguson and Welbeck was preferred over the experienced England international.

Meulensteen defended his coach saying: “The manager asked Wayne to do that role many times before, sometimes he’s done a perfect job, other times he hasn’t. It was such a big game. We felt sometimes if we do start Wayne, he used up so much energy that coming to the end of the game he was running out of steam a bit. Asking a player to constantly drop back on Alonso takes a lot of energy.

“Of course, Wayne can perfectly play with Robin. The ball against Aston Villa [for Van Persie’s second last season] sums it all up. Wayne’s been an excellent player for United over so many years but if you want to see Wayne at his best, everything in his world needs to be stable, on and off the pitch. The year we beat Arsenal in the semi-final of the Champions League [in 2009] was the best I’ve seen Wayne: powerful, full of desire and determination, sharp finishing. He was unstoppable.

“But we thought, ‘let Welbeck take the sting out of the game, and then bring Wayne in, then have the Red Arrows flying forward’. I was just discussing [in the second leg] with the manager that ‘this is a good time now to bring Wayne on’ and then there was that stupid incident of Nani.

“The card was absolutely ridiculous. The manager went down to have a go at the fourth official. He knew ‘this is my last season’. I was sitting there, thinking ‘hold on a minute, no matter what happens, that card is there. How do we deal with it? We need to kill that width’.

“What I was trying to get across was to put one guy in to create a defensive line of five for 10 minutes to re-establish ourselves. We didn’t react properly. I couldn’t get through to him [Ferguson] to get it done. I saw Luka Modric coming on [to change the game for Real]. Mourinho reacted.”

The Dutchman feels Mourinho should have been considered for the Manchester United post: “I thought Mourinho definitely could have been a candidate for the United job. The manager and him are on very good speaking terms, have a lot of texts. They respect each other. Mourinho would have relished it. To understand him, you have to split Mourinho up into three characters. Him, as he really is, a family man. Him as the entrepreneur, the one that deals with the media. He does everything with a purpose, a hidden agenda. And him, as the man who deals on the day-to-day basis with the players. He’s a very good communicator, speaks different languages, and one who has obviously studied the game.”