Deportivo La Coruña scouts saw the best and worst of Manchester United at Elland Road. Even with their leading goalscorer on the bench, United are still capable of scoring four goals away from home, but as the Spanish side know perfectly well, they do not always hold a lead as convincingly as they seize it.

'Don't forget, we know a lot about Deportívo too, after the two previous games,' Sir Alex Ferguson said. 'Because of the results they will be confident they can get through, and I cannot deny some of their football was terrific in the first match, but I don't think history will necessarily repeat itself.

'In the first game they didn't create many clear chances, we scored first and we should have buried them in the second half, but we lost two goals in four minutes at the end. That just shouldn't happen. If you are a goal up with four minutes to go you shouldn't lose. You might draw, but you shouldn't lose.

'Then in the second game we made some monumental mistakes and gave away goals cheaply. Again, it shouldn't happen. We must have had eight clear chances, they had four and put away three. All everyone remembers is the errors, but I actually don't think our European form has been bad this season.

'It has been acceptable to me, it is just a question of cutting out the errors and not allowing opponents to get goals cheaply. I think we can do that, but you never know with us. We've suffered so often this year, and the same sort of thing happened last week against Middlesbrough.'

Ferguson feels, in Europe especially, that his decision to stay on as manager has lifted some of the pressure from his players. 'I think that might be true,' he said. 'When I was still retiring, and because the final will be in Glasgow, there was maybe a feeling that it had to be this year. That's gone now, we're all a bit more relaxed.' You can understand what he means. United are now back playing in the same spirit as everyone else and have an enormous desire to win the thing, but there is always next year if they don't.

Ferguson believes side will meet Liverpool in the semi-final, and that Bayern Munich and Barcelona will contest the other. Barcelona only have Panathinaikos to beat, whereas Bayern will have to put out the favourites, Real Madrid.

'Real Madrid are my favourite team, too,' Ferguson said, 'but Bayern are the most efficient. There's just no space on the pitch when you play them, they have every position filled. We tried switching this way and that but we couldn't stretch them. The Celta Vigo manager told me Deportívo came second in their group because they wanted to avoid Bayern at all costs. They would rather have played Real than Bayern. That tells you a lot. Bayern are a big team.'

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