Manchester United held to draw in Barcelona

Instead of wasting valuable hours on a late night flight home to Manchester, disrupted sleep, poor training, extra pressure on bumps, bruises and swellings, Ferguson has decided to keep his squad at their Hospitalet luxury hotel, will warm-down at Barca's newly completed training ground on the way to the airport this lunchtime and then catch a plane to London, where they will stay until Saturday's crunch match at the Bridge.

It all makes perfect sense. Ferguson already has a full squad to select from and he will make changes for the weekend in the hope of keeping his players fresh.

But Barca midfielder Xavi and Argentine defender Gaby Milito both believe the Premier League title decider may play straight into their hands next week.

Xavi said: "Hopefully they'll have no chance to rest and it's a really tough match they face [at Chelsea].

Milito added that a win for the Blues will have a debilitating effect on United but praised their resilience in defence.

"Let's see whether having yet another hugely important game like the one at Chelsea weighs United down a little bit for the second leg," he said.

"It's that stage of the season when the amount of games you've played can start to get to you and we are quite conscious that they've got the League in play this weekend.

"I guess United go away with some of their goal achieved. They didn't lose, although when we looked at the team sheet and saw [Carlos] Tevez, Rooney and Ronaldo, we expected them to play more considered, more attacking and more measured football instead of just defending.

"They were very defensive but they got what they came for and I thought their back four played impressively.

"For sure they won't park their bus in front of the goal in the second leg like they did here but that suits us fine because the more teams try to get after us the more spaces they leave in behind for us to exploit."

Despite the fact that the Catalans fulfilled their promise to try and retain possession of the ball, Ronaldo's second-minute penalty should have been dispatched instead of being sent wide - for all his imperious displays this season, how the footballer of the year in waiting may live to regret that miss.

He should have been awarded another spot kick when Iniesta's thoughtless back pass was intercepted by the Portuguese, only for Rafael Marquez to bundle him down to the ground. Two goals up against a side which has scored only three times in the last five matches at that stage of the semi-final would have been as good as a free pass to the Moscow final for Ferguson. Instead, United have left themselves vulnerable to an away goal. One effort from Barcelona will leave the champions needing to score twice and Xavi is confident they can become the third team after Manchester City and Coventry to win at Old Trafford this season.

He said: "There isn't an away ground in the world where Barca are not capable of winning. We dominated United at all times in this match and we should have won it. It's not a major disappointment, just a bitter sweet experience given that we might have scored two or three."

The best of those efforts came from substitute Thierry Henry. The former Arsenal striker was given a 13 minute cameo near the end of the game and worked Van der Sar twice - once with a routine save from a free-kick but the other with a vicious shot that swerved and dipped and forced the Dutch keeper to palm the ball away from his goal.

How Henry would love to return to England and add to the nine goals he has in 19 games against United.