The Manchester Title Race

If we beat QPR on Sunday I will be supremely confident of winning the title. City would be demoralised to see a 7 point lead turn into an 8 point deficit.

If we don't take maximum points on Sunday, city will have a bit of belief back.

It's not over yet although the fat lady has started humming.....
 
marjen said:
City will never in a million years win at Arsenal, Newcastle, Wolves and Norwich away. Never. I think they'll get 7 points at most from those. Which means we're afforded a draw and a loss in our next four matches and still be 5 in front when Derby Day arrives.
Click to expand...

I have to agree with this. With the lead we've built up, City need to win all those four away games and I just do not think they're capable the way things have gone.

Sunny Jim said:
is it 31 out 33 from last 11 games for us? :drool:
Click to expand...

Yes. 31 out of 33 since Scholes re-joined, incidentally.

Sarni said:
You're making way too much out if this Everton side, it really isn't that scary fixture. We've beaten them at Old Trafford consistently for the past few years if I remember correctly and they aren't any better than they used to be. They've had a good run recently but their most impressive results came at home, remember that they lost 3-0 to Liverpool at Anfield not so long ago.

Sunderland is our toughest fixture outside of the Etihad game and I hope it will be meaningless.
Click to expand...

I also have to agree with this, which sounds like ridiculous complacency throughout my post but Everton at home hasn't cause us many problems down the years and I don't see anything about them now that changes it.
 
Red Dreams said:
Mancini does have class. So it is not beyond the possibility.

But the owners and fans will not tolerate it.

So they wont give it. No matter really.

We will celebrate like crazy at Old Trafford.
Click to expand...

More fool them. As I understand it, when we did it for Chelsea (and am I right in thinking this was something new at the time, there was no history of doing them when these situations arose? Or was there?) it was not out of generosity or respect, though those were additional positives about it. SAF did it because he wanted to make damn sure the players took the situation seriously, and did everything they could to rectify it the following year. It was a motivational thing. And it worked.
 
sammsky1 said:
That was 1990/91!!!

I don't think we have ever lost the league in such a position. When Arsenal, Blackburn, and Chelsea have won the odd title in the last 21 years, we were never in pole position like we are now.

In fact, since SAFs first PL win, at this stage of the season, I can't remember when we have not finished off the job. Can you give me an example except 1990/91 when injuries and inexperience saw us lose the title as if by magic in the last 5 games.
Click to expand...

Losing that year to Leeds still hurts. That was probably the worst I've felt during my football supporting years, and I include relegation.
 
Anderson's Cat said:
We barely managed to beat Everton at home last year. A late goal by Hernandez if I'm not mistaken.
Click to expand...

We did beat them, though. We were held 1-1 in 2005/06 - that was the last time we didn't win at home to them.

Simon Adebesi said:
More fool them. As I understand it, when we did it for Chelsea (and am I right in thinking this was something new at the time, there was no history of doing them when these situations arose? Or was there?) it was not out of generosity or respect, though those were additional positives about it. SAF did it because he wanted to make damn sure the players took the situation seriously, and did everything they could to rectify it the following year. It was a motivational thing. And it worked.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I can't recall seeing it before and Fergie admitted it was motivation.

Chelsea returned the favour two years later, although we sent our reserves out so it ended up being Dong, Chris Eagles, Kieran Richardson, Kieran Lee and Heinze as captain walking out there. Hilarious.
 
Everton's away form:

W Bolton
L Arsenal
D Sunderland
W West Brom
L Spurs
D Villa
D Wigan
D QPR
L Liverpool
W Swansea

3 wins, 4 draws, 3 losses. But they are coming off their most impressive away win, at Swansea, where only ourselves and Norwich had previously been able to win. Overall pretty inconsistent results, we should be confident for that one.
 
charlenefan said:
What would people prefer though? It all over before the derby and a guard of honour or actually clinching it by denying them on their own ground?

It's the latter for me :devil:
Click to expand...

Now that I'm feeling very confident about us winning the league (so much so that I can pick exactly when we win it), it has to be winning it at the Etihad. Assuming we win our next four games (which I think we will), and City win their four, we'd win it by beating them. However a more likely scenario for me is that they drop points at Arsenal, meaning we'll have a seven or eight point gap, meaning we'd only need to draw there to win it at their place.

Think of the Blackburn game last season, when I'm sure most of us already felt we'd won it, having just beaten Chelsea, needing a point - manic celebrations. Imagine it at their place :drool:
 
It would be nice to win it in the next game at home to Swansea as well, always nice to celebrate in front of the home supporters. It's nice to rub it in City's face and all, but better to just soak it up with 70,000 friends.
 
sammsky1 said:
That was 1990/91!!!

I don't think we have ever lost the league in such a position. When Arsenal, Blackburn, and Chelsea have won the odd title in the last 21 years, we were never in pole position like we are now.

In fact, since SAFs first PL win, at this stage of the season, I can't remember when we have not finished off the job. Can you give me an example except 1990/91 when injuries and inexperience saw us lose the title as if by magic in the last 5 games.
Click to expand...

91/92.

We were top from October '97 to April '98 when Arsenal won the title. We had an 11 point lead, albeit with Arsenal having games in hand. We lost to Wednesday a game or two before, but losing to them in March was the turning point, without question.

We were also top of the league when Chelsea came to OT in April 2010. We hadn't built up a huge lead there, but we threw away top spot.

I largely agree with your point, by the way, but it's not unheard of for us.
 
Cling Bak said:
91/92.

We were top from October '97 to April '98 when Arsenal won the title. We had an 11 point lead, albeit with Arsenal having games in hand. We lost to Wednesday a game or two before, but losing to them in March was the turning point, without question.

We were also top of the league when Chelsea came to OT in April 2010. We hadn't built up a huge lead there, but we threw away top spot.

I largely agree with your point, by the way, but it's not unheard of for us.
Click to expand...
Contains a naughty word.
532987_279760268772006_119515718129796_632340_1303599098_n.jpg
 
Cling Bak said:
Yeah, I can't recall seeing it before and Fergie admitted it was motivation.
Click to expand...

Newcastle might actually be the 1st team to do this in the Premier league era, I remember them giving us a guard of honour at Old Trafford late in the 1996/97 season. We drew 0-0. There hadn't been that many occasions when the league was well wrapped up before then, although if anyone remembers the Blackburn match at OT in 1993, did they do a guard of honour?
 
We're still in chucking this away territory, but thankfully City are rammed full of unpredictable mercenary bottlers, so I think we're almost safe now
 
Gazza said:
Newcastle might actually be the 1st team to do this in the Premier league era, I remember them giving us a guard of honour at Old Trafford late in the 1996/97 season. We drew 0-0. There hadn't been that many occasions when the league was well wrapped up before then, although if anyone remembers the Blackburn match at OT in 1993, did they do a guard of honour?
Click to expand...

I was there and I have a vague recolletion that there was a guard of honour but I'm not completely sure... there was some sort of epic trophy presentation at the end that I remember though :D
 
The one thing that we need to keep in mind is that we have 3 games in 8 days. Which necessitates rotation and I'm absolutely convinced we WILL drop points in that stretch. We've taken 31 of 33 points in the last 11 matches. That is virtually unheard of form - and has to give at some stage.

I just can't see us winning the league if we lose at Eastlands. Despite us obviously hauling them back in, City are still on course to come close to or break the total points tally for a season. City aren't going to wobble too much more, and I just can't see us getting 16/21 points in the next 7 matches.

Love to be proved wrong, but will be absolutely shocked if we don't need something from the derby to win the league.
 
We were five points clear of Chelsea with only six games remaining back in 07/08 and ended up on the same points on the final day, there is still along way to go.
 
adam118 said:
We were five points clear of Chelsea with only six games remaining back in 07/08 and ended up on the same points on the final day, there is still along way to go.
Click to expand...
We were still in Champions League and we lost points at Riverside and Ewood Park (Middlesbrough between Champions League quarter-finals against Rome, Blackburn four days before the semi-final at Nou Camp). We don't have any other competitions now, just the league.
 
Beachryan said:
The one thing that we need to keep in mind is that we have 3 games in 8 days. Which necessitates rotation and I'm absolutely convinced we WILL drop points in that stretch. We've taken 31 of 33 points in the last 11 matches. That is virtually unheard of form - and has to give at some stage.

I just can't see us winning the league if we lose at Eastlands. Despite us obviously hauling them back in, City are still on course to come close to or break the total points tally for a season. City aren't going to wobble too much more, and I just can't see us getting 16/21 points in the next 7 matches.

Love to be proved wrong, but will be absolutely shocked if we don't need something from the derby to win the league.
Click to expand...

You can't see us dropping less than 6 points in 7 games when we've dropped 2 in the last 11?

And what do you mean by 'City are still on course to come close to or break the total points tally for a season'? You mean the league record for points? They are not on course for that, and as we have more points, we're obviously on course to get more than them, and more likely to break any points record. 'Points so far' as an indicator points to us.

If you're only reason we won't get 16 from the next 21 is that we've been playing record-breaking quality football, you might want to rethink things.
 
gooDevil said:
You can't see us dropping less than 6 points in 7 games when we've dropped 2 in the last 11?

And what do you mean by 'City are still on course to come close to or break the total points tally for a season'? You mean the league record for points? They are not on course for that, and as we have more points, we're obviously on course to get more than them, and more likely to break any points record. 'Points so far' as an indicator points to us.

If you're only reason we won't get 16 from the next 21 is that we've been playing record-breaking quality football, you might want to rethink things.
Click to expand...

If we don't drop 5 points from the next 21 we will have gotten at least 47 of 54 points in the final 18 games of the season. That is just incredible for any team at any time to do, no matter our team at this time. I think across a season it would come out at like 104 points!

I mean, don't get me wrong - I certainly hope we do - but I won't be shocked when we drop points.
 
I sympathize, a good run can only go on for so long, but it's also a bit counter-intuitive to bet against a team on a winning streak because they 'are due a loss', you'll probably lose more than you win on that strategy.

I wouldn't have believed this team could get 31 of 33 points, but here we are. It's a bit startling, has to be confounding those that think this is one of our worst teams in Fergie's time at United. But after dealing with losing Vidic, Cleverley, Anderson, Nani and all the others, we seem to have had some consistency in the line-up, some much needed continuity. I don't see any reason to think we'll end the year that poorly, we're on course to win more points than any team in United history for 38 games.
 
Gazza said:
Newcastle might actually be the 1st team to do this in the Premier league era, I remember them giving us a guard of honour at Old Trafford late in the 1996/97 season. We drew 0-0. There hadn't been that many occasions when the league was well wrapped up before then, although if anyone remembers the Blackburn match at OT in 1993, did they do a guard of honour?
Click to expand...

The best Guard of Honour was in 2007 when we clinched the title from Chelsea a few days before we travelled to Stamford Bridge. Lampard, Terry et al lined up to salute the champions and out strolls Kieran Richardson, Chris Eagles and the like. Pure poetry!! :D
 
Beachryan said:
The one thing that we need to keep in mind is that we have 3 games in 8 days. Which necessitates rotation and I'm absolutely convinced we WILL drop points in that stretch. We've taken 31 of 33 points in the last 11 matches. That is virtually unheard of form - and has to give at some stage.

I just can't see us winning the league if we lose at Eastlands. Despite us obviously hauling them back in, City are still on course to come close to or break the total points tally for a season. City aren't going to wobble too much more, and I just can't see us getting 16/21 points in the next 7 matches.

Love to be proved wrong, but will be absolutely shocked if we don't need something from the derby to win the league.
Click to expand...
I did my Title prediction run-in yesterday,very cautiously too! Allowing for a draw last night, a draw with Sunderland and losing at Citeh!.....and we still win it comfortably!
 
Anderson's Cat said:
The best Guard of Honour was in 2007 when we clinched the title from Chelsea a few days before we travelled to Stamford Bridge. Lampard, Terry et al lined up to salute the champions and out strolls Kieran Richardson, Chris Eagles and the like. Pure poetry!! :D
Click to expand...

Dong was part of that hollowed team as well
 
gooDevil said:
And Heinze was captain...:nervous:

29 Tomasz Kuszczak
22 John O'Shea
6 Wes Brown
4 Gabriel Heinze
35 Kieran Lee
24 Darren Fletcher
23 Kieran Richardson
33 Chris Eagles
14 Alan Smith
20 Ole Gunnar Solskjaer
21 Fangzhou Dong
Click to expand...

Best part was we absolutely should have won - 'stonewall' penalty by essien on Eagles not given...
 
gooDevil said:
Everton's away form:

W Bolton
L Arsenal
D Sunderland
W West Brom
L Spurs
D Villa
D Wigan
D QPR
L Liverpool
W Swansea

3 wins, 4 draws, 3 losses. But they are coming off their most impressive away win, at Swansea, where only ourselves and Norwich had previously been able to win. Overall pretty inconsistent results, we should be confident for that one.
Click to expand...

They've picked up 17 points out of the last 27. Only United and Arsenal have more.
 
Apparently Gibson has been their best player of late, to read the Everton message boards, and has turned it around for them by being the calm presence in the middle and their best passer.
 
gooDevil said:
Apparently Gibson has been their best player of late, to read the Everton message boards, and has turned it around for them by being the calm presence in the middle and their best passer.
Click to expand...

Hopefully there's another sort of gentleman's agreement between Fergie and Moyes where Gibson doesn't play against us. I'd rather he didn't bury one from 25 yards against us.
 
I don't think people are looking far enough ahead, beyond this weekend. If City beat Arsenal things look a lot less rosy - there's a good chance it'll spur them on to victories against West Brom, Norwich and Wolves. If we slip up just once along the way, City can beat us for the title.

I hope the players aren't as complacent as some of you bells!
 
RK said:
I don't think people are looking far enough ahead, beyond this weekend. If City beat Arsenal things look a lot less rosy - there's a good chance it'll spur them on to victories against West Brom, Norwich and Wolves. If we slip up just once along the way, City can beat us for the title.

I hope the players aren't as complacent as some of you bells!
Click to expand...

I agree that its far from over but I just can't see City beating Arsenal.
 
gooDevil said:
I sympathize, a good run can only go on for so long, but it's also a bit counter-intuitive to bet against a team on a winning streak because they 'are due a loss', you'll probably lose more than you win on that strategy.

I wouldn't have believed this team could get 31 of 33 points, but here we are. It's a bit startling, has to be confounding those that think this is one of our worst teams in Fergie's time at United. But after dealing with losing Vidic, Cleverley, Anderson, Nani and all the others, we seem to have had some consistency in the line-up, some much needed continuity. I don't see any reason to think we'll end the year that poorly, we're on course to win more points than any team in United history for 38 games.
Click to expand...

I reckon not being in Europe, and early exits from the cups have helped the team (a loss can be a victory) I'm not sure the squad would have coped with so many injuries - fatigue and more injuries would have occurred and we'd have suffered in the league, and likely ended up winning nothing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.