Man United squad:
Starting line-up: Van Der Sar, O'Shea, Smalling, Vidic, Evra, Fletcher, Gibson, Carrick, Nani, Rooney and Berbatov.
Bench- Kuszczak, Rafael, Brown, Fabio, Scholes, Obertan and Hernandez
The Game:
Manchester United got off to a positive start with a few efforts on goal and pressurising the Marseille defence but the longer the first half went on, the fewer chances there were.
The first opportunity of the game fell to United; a free-kick taken by Luis Nani, which struck the wall but rebounded straight into the path of Darren Fletcher, his shot tested Marseille keeper Steve Mandanda but he managed to gather the ball second time round.
Marseille's best chance of the first half came in the 40th minute. A corner taken by Andre Ayew nearly went in but Edwin Van Der Sar got across to the near post to claim the ball.
The first chance of the second half fell to Marseille but Van Der Sar was able to collect Brandao's header. A minute later, down the other end of the pitch, Wayne Rooney's cross was missed by Mandanda, fortunately for the home side, Gabriel Heinze was able to head the ball away with Nani behind him ready to head the ball into the goal.
That was followed by a bright spell for Marseille, Lucho Gonzalez nearly got onto the end of a cross by Heinze. Loic Remy's strike was blocked, the ball found it's way to Ayew who had a shot on goal. The shot was going wide but nearly fell for Brandao, fortunately for United, it didn't.
One of United's best chances of the game came in the 81st minute. Nani slipped the ball to Dimitar Berbatov, he tried to play Nani in but the ball took a slight deflection, which gave Mandanda the opportunity to come off his line and collect the ball, just ahead of Nani.
With only three minutes remaining, Rooney looked to be clear through on goal but was pulled back by Stephane M'Bia, the referee saw nothing wrong with the challenge and waved play on.
The game finished in a 0-0 draw, it wasn't the best of games but not such a bad result for Man United.
Reaction:
After the game, Sir Alex Ferguson told ITV1:
"It was disappointing [the teams performance], the pitch was lively but they made sure they weren't going to lose a goal. We got in good positions but we didn't have enough.
"Nil-nil can be a dangerous scoreline if you lose a goal at home but it's about winning the game, if we win the game we're through. We're confident, I think we'll be much better."
Nice review but not scoring away from home could prove very pivotal in the return leg, but like you quoted Fergie if we win were through simple really. I didn't watch the game personally yet, but i have seen a load of pictures with green lasers on our players i will refrain from the comments i made on those but on the tv could you see the lasers and was it creating a distraction to our players on the pitch a visible one that is?