It is a golden age for English football, at club level at least, but as Frank Rijkaard, the beaten Barcelona coach, pondered the prospect of an all-Barclays Premier League final, he raised a question that some may find uncomfortable: what have England's top clubs sacrificed in pursuit of success in the Champions League?

Some would say that they have sold their soul, having fallen under foreign ownership, but Rijkaard was talking about tactics. He was talking about a Manchester United team who, for all the individual talent of Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney, had seemed more concerned with containment in the first leg of their semi-final at the Nou Camp last week, when they had only 39 per cent of possession and tested Víctor Valdés, the Barcelona goalkeeper, once. It was a similar story at Old Trafford on Tuesday, when United had 38 per cent of possession and only two shots on target.

Statistics can deceive, but this, Rijkaard said, was not the English football he knew and loved. “I think the level of English teams is very high,” the Barcelona coach said. “If it was not for the fact that two of them [Liverpool and Arsenal] had to play each other in the last eight, they could very easily have had four teams in the last four. It is very difficult to beat them. They are very strong and very disciplined. They all get behind the ball quickly when they lose it and are very well organised. They play very good counter-attacking football. It is therefore very difficult to beat an English team.”

So far, so complimentary. But there followed a more cutting remark. “I think in some ways it is a pity because the English teams have a lot more to give on the pitch that the public would like to see,” Rijkaard said, “but for them the result is all-important. It is strange to see English teams defending for their lives in Europe and trying to win games on the counter-attack. They can do a lot more than that.

“They have their own spirit and can play football on the front foot, but you don't see it in the Champions League. I see it on the TV in the Premier League, but not in European competitions. I think it started when the foreign coaches came. English football in Europe became more cautious. It is great for them to do so well, but it is also a pity. It is not the most beautiful way of football.”

Sour grapes notwithstanding, he has a point. There is a significant difference between United's cavalier style in the majority of their league matches and their cagey approach in Europe. In both legs against Barcelona Sir Alex Ferguson fielded two men up front and two out wide, but for the wingers - Rooney and Park Ji Sung at the Nou Camp, Park and Nani at Old Trafford - the emphasis was on perspiration rather than inspiration, just as it was for the tireless Carlos Tévez on Tuesday.

It was perhaps no coincidence that it was arguably the best performance of the industrious Park's United career. In some ways he made more impression on the match than Lionel Messi, who, for all his balletic brilliance, seems to run only when the ball is at his feet.

When informed of Rijkaard's comments, Ferguson issued a measured response. It is in the tactical sphere that the United manager has occasionally been accused of lacking the instinct of some of his younger rivals, but he seemed almost happy to call it a triumph of tactics and industry over what appeared a more talented Barcelona team.

“What he is saying is that we didn't go whoosh,” Ferguson said, making a theatrical gesture with a hand. “We didn't go hell for leather all the time and attack too early. But I think he would have liked us to.”