Top 4 Race 19/20 | duffer: "We [Chelsea] are getting 3rd. Despite what the lunatics in here think, Man United are not all that."

Think we will drop points somewhere along the way so not going to feel confident unless Leicester or Chelsea drop a few more.
 
Bilbo said:
Being realistic here United have 3 opportunities to play CL football next season

  • City's ban is upheld or reduced to one season. I suspect its highly likely that a reduction to one season will be the outcome. The initial 2 year verdict sentence was perfectly setup for a reduction to 1 on appeal
  • We finish top 4. We should feel fairly confident about this given the remaining fixtures
  • We win Europa League. I feel slightly less confident in one-legged ties but still we are favourites and in great form. We are the best team left in the competition, but....its a cup and therefore somewhat of a lottery

All in all we should feel quite confident that one of these avenues is going to pan out for us, but even if we don't we are clearly a team that are getting better and better and we should all be excited about what next season will bring.

Top 4 was always an ambitious goal for us given the squad we came into the season with. If we get it we have over-achieved, however this season was mainly about repairing the squad and restoring the winning mentality in the players, and we have made huge strides
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We’ll get there one way or another. I’m fairly confident of how we’re playing now. I just pray Bruno isn’t injured and we should be okay.
 
Samid said:
Last week: "Is it in our hands"
This week: "Do we need to match/better Leicester's results"

This thread is a train wreck.
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Must be 20 pages of posts on here now from people who can't do simple maths
 
Maluco said:
No easy games left for Leicester with their form since December. They were saved by a red card tonight and now they have to go to a team fighting to survive and win, and that’s their easiest game.

Then they have to beat Sheffield United, who have only lost 4 times away from home in all competitions this season.

And then go to Mourinho’s anti football Spurs and win too?

It isn’t happening. If United do their job, they will be in the top 4 going into the last day.
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Yeah as much as I think Tottenham are dreadful, I still feel they’ll get something off Leicester. Also there is chance SU could get something too.
 
If we win our next 4 games, there's a pretty good chance we'll only need a draw on final day against Leicester. It would put us on 68 points, for this to be enough we would need

Leicester to drop points in 1 of their games against Bournemouth, Sheffield and Spurs.

or

Chelsea to drop points in 2 of their games against Sheffield, Norwich, Liverpool and Wolves.

I think there's a decent chance one of these scenarios plays out.

However, obviously not a given that we will win our next 4, or we can get the result we need in the last game against Leicester. A lot of arrogance on here acting as if it's inevitable we'd beat Leicester in the last game if we needed to win.
 
Berbasbullet said:
Yes but the general point that most people are making is simply we win all our games we are in champions league. Hence the misunderstanding.
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That general point is entirely correct - indeed I have made it myself.

The specific point I replied to was that we need only match Leicester's results and the beat them. That is wrong.

Anyway, it matters not. Let's just beat Villa.
 
Speedy30 said:
We will hopefully still be trying to end the season winning every game at home which is something that no team has done before. If that's the case, we'll be full strength and going for it
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Plus will be the day you lift the title, so I'd imagine it's a more motivated Liverpool than any game you'll have until then.
 
Chelsea will likely drop points at Sheffield United or Liverpool, especially with the scousers lifting the trophy that night.

Leicester will likely drop points at Spurs or Sheffield United.

I'm just not sure we've got it in us to win all our games.
 
Infra-red said:
No, we need to better their results at two stages. They drew tonight, so we have the opportunity to knock one of the two down by winning our corresponding fixture, against Villa.

Presumably you do realise that we haven't beaten Villa yet.
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True. We could lose to Villa and it will be out of our hands again. We’ll smash them though
 
bosnian_red said:
Plus will be the day you lift the title, so I'd imagine it's a more motivated Liverpool than any game you'll have until then.
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Fair point. For what it's worth, I think you'll get in the top four. I don't think Chelsea or Leicester will win out and with your form, I honestly can't see where you're dropping points at the moment.
 
bosnian_red said:
If you expect us to drop against Palace/Southampton/Villa/West Ham, then surely you expect them to drop more against Spurs/Sheffield/Bournemouth? Yeah in the scenario that they win their 3 before the game against us and we drop in one of these 3 and needing us to win to get in, this point makes a difference there as then it goes down to goal difference. Don't think it comes down to that though. We need to win the games we should be winning if we want to get in, it's pretty standard. I do think they'll drop away to Spurs though, even if Spurs have been mediocre with Mourinho. Still a tough team to play.
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Maybe, but we're 4 points behind as well. A quick check on the odds of us beating Villa and Southampton just in the next 2, 1.71 (58%). That draw could easily be vital for Leicester in other scenarios, it's definitely not meaningless.
 
I don’t know why the focus is on Leicester, Chelsea’s fixtures are awful!

edited because I can’t read fixture lists it looks like
Chelsea still have a shite run in
 
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SirScholes said:
I don’t know why the focus is on Leicester, Chelsea’s fixtures are awful!
Sheffield, Liverpool and old Trafford that’s easily 8 points dropped
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Chelsea play United in the cup. It's Sheffield, Norwich, Liverpool and Wolves. 2 games where you can see them drop, 2 easy wins probably.
 
SirScholes said:
I don’t know why the focus is on Leicester, Chelsea’s fixtures are awful!
Sheffield, Liverpool and old Trafford that’s easily 8 points dropped
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Why on earth does everyone seem to think we’re playing them in the league?

This fixture is the FA Cup semi final at Wembley. We played them twice in the league and beat the 4-0 at OT, 2-0 away.
 
SirScholes said:
I don’t know why the focus is on Leicester, Chelsea’s fixtures are awful!
Sheffield, Liverpool and old Trafford that’s easily 8 points dropped
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Think you're confusing our FA cup game in there. We don't play Chelsea in the league again this season.
 
Infra-red said:
That general point is entirely correct - indeed I have made it myself.

The specific point I replied to was that we need only match Leicester's results and the beat them. That is wrong.

Anyway, it matters not. Let's just beat Villa.
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Agreed, I think Villa will be a tough match but let’s hope we have too much for them.
 
Woodzy said:
Think we will drop points somewhere along the way so not going to feel confident unless Leicester or Chelsea drop a few more.
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For some reason I am nervous about Southampton. Hasenhüttl is a good coach, they've just beaten City, we are quite likely to rest some of the starting XI during the Saints/Palace/West Ham run.

Leicester also have a tricky run. I can see all three clubs dropping a few along the way. It's going to come down to the final game at the King Power.
 
Leicester have 1 point on us if we win at Villa. So if they win all their games, it won't matter if we win all our games.
bite! bite! bite!
 
JB08 said:
Why on earth does everyone seem to think we’re playing them in the league?

This fixture is the FA Cup semi final at Wembley. We played them twice in the league and beat the 4-0 at OT, 2-0 away.
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I think it's because when you google Man United fixtures, the way google lays it out doesn't show any difference between competitions.
 
I think what is interesting is how confident most of us are that we, more likely than not, will win all our remaining games. Lets hope the players don’t have the same attitude, cause if you relax during squeeky bum time, you’re bound to get fekked...
Lets focus on ourselves, and treat every game as the cup final it actually is!
 
Gonna predict before the final day:
United to win 3 and draw 1 of the next 4, leading up to Leicester - 65 points
Leicester to lose to Spurs and win the other 2 - 65 points
Chelsea to lose to Liverpool and win the other 2 - 66 points

So the point actually is a bit annoying today, but at the same time, Palace away for us being the hardest game means we can easily win all 4. Means we'll need a win away to them, unless we manage to make up 9 goals on them (Leicester with wins vs Bournemouth away, Sheffield home, loss vs Arsenal, and United with 3 wins from Villa/Southampton/Palace/West ham). Tomorrow will decide if we can actually do it IMO, as a nice 4-0 would be the only hope for that I'd say. Would need 2 4-0's against West ham and Villa, and get +1 on Leicester with the Palace and Southampton games vs them against Bournemouth and Sheffield. Unlikely. Anyway, if in January you asked us if we could get top 4 with a win against Leicester, we'd have taken that.

Plus as back up, I do think City will be banned next year anyway (just for the 1 year), and then Europa League we are by a distance the best side there who will be the most motivated IMO. But we'll see for that.
 
GwilDor said:
I think what is interesting is how confident most of us are that we, more likely than not, will win all our remaining games. Lets hope the players don’t have the same attitude, cause if you relax during squeeky bum time, you’re bound to get fekked...
Lets focus on ourselves, and treat every game as the cup final it actually is!
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This is the right attitude. We'll need to rotate a bit at some point, so hopefully we can get some decent performances from Williams, Fred, McTominay and Ighalo. I'm also hoping that Mourinho does us a favour and takes points off Leicester. You owe us, Jose.
 
rotherham_red said:
If Liverpool win the rest of their games this season, they will beat City's points record in their game against Chelsea. And considering Klopp only made 3 changes to his first choice lineup against Villa, nothing is telling me he and they won't go for it.
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1st half against Villa they managed 1 shot on target and looked more like a disinterested group than determined to break records.

Chelseas need will be greater for that match and Lampard is a lucky general so don't be surprised if its another poxy Chelsea win.
 
ChaddyP said:
Some of you are clearly off your meds



And its not even at old Trafford... It's a t Wembley :lol:
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Aye I spotted but the floods of messages pushed so far I couldn’t amend it in time

point remains though Chelsea have a torrid fixture list
 
Arse of all people helping us out. Since Chelsea seems hell bent on securing 3rd, Leicester is the one who has to drop points.

We must defeat Villa; and then just one point behind Leicester, they will crumble.
 
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