The Manchester Title Race

Feed Me

Soothing words

Thank God the next two games are at home. As much as wins, I think we need to perform well - City's tails are up after two big wins.

Hate football!

Leg-End

The next 2 games are key and they are both extremely winnable at home, of course Wigan away looked extremely winnable too but perhaps that was the kick up the arse we needed.

But yeah win those and I think heading into the City game we might be ready to end it.

togg

well...lets look at it this way, at least we are in the race, contending with all the emotions that go with it. Much rather this that be a Chelsea or Arsenal fan....

pauldyson1uk

You cant deny that City are very good at home , but I think we can get something out of it , Sunderland showed that City are vulnerable at home if we can keep the pressure on for the full 90 mins.

hungrywing

The Balotelli hoopla may just have given them a perverse sort of locker-room solidarity, with everyone going: okay yeah, we're all mercs but at least we're not as bad as that guy.

Transfer United Till I Die

I think essentially we are going to have to win all four bar city, where I can't see us getting anything.

TheBest

We have 2 home games. We will win those and then beat city to win the title, thats how I like to read the table.

Transfer United Till I Die

I think it was less ballotelli and more us fucking up at Wigan.

bosnian_red

It's because everyone is looking at the worst case scenario, everything is based on if they win that game. If they beat us, then we have to win every other game, any points lost and that is the title lost most likely. Its definitely the title decider though, and sadly I can see us going a bit defensive in that game because all we need is a draw. Hope we play like its a cup final though.

TheBest

Good doesn't mean they will just win there, they may but we can win their as well. I don't think being at etihad would matter too much.

Rednails

Everton will be hard, they will be wanting to finish above Liverpool more than ever now.

togg

perhaps....although they might be washed out after having come so close to perhaps getting trohpy after all these years..

Relevated

I got a feeling they wont call themselves mercenaries.

togg

We can all predict...it means nothing......just one thing if for sure...tomorrow at kick off, I'm going to be bricking it to see which united I'm going to see for 90 mins!!!!!!!

TheBest

Yes if they beat us plus if we drop more points. I really doubt that we will drop 5 points. Specially since after tomorrows match, we will again have midweek off for the rest of the matches.

pauldyson1uk

I disagree the home crowd will always give City that edge just like it does at OT

Godfather

Nothings for sure and I hope we beat them but atm the momentum is theirs. They are hitting form again and we got several players badly out of form. I'd be satisfied with a draw though and I think that should be enough. Let's hope for the best

noodlehair

If it wasn't THIS United side I wouldn't be worried,

but this is the United side who ponce around whenever they get a goal or two up, play in slow motion for large periods of games as if they've got nothing left to prove to anyone, and who've relied on a retired player for the last four months.

More importantly, this United side has already mentally capitulated in big games three or four times this season...something I can only recall happening once in the five seasons previous to that. They're not nearly as tough as Fergie's other sides, which is ging to cause them big problems now with a few of the games we have left.

We're still favourites, but I'm at best about half as confident as the last few times we've been in this sort of position.

The Blackburn game made me think we'd cracked it, but then we played like a bunch of complete princesses against Wigan.

Pogue Mahone

Huh? Our record in big games this season is as good, if not better than, any of the previous three or four seasons - if not longer.

Have you completely blanked all those horrible defeats against liverpool, chelsea, arsenal and - most pertinently - City from your memory?

TheBest

We have done well past few seasons. Whereas we did lose at OT so I think it won't be too much of an advantage. Don't know why but I'm quite positive about the title.

Thick Numpty

mental illness indeed. It seems this place has collectively shit the trunks this past week.

bosnian_red

I just have a bad feeling about the final game, away to sunderland. You never know what can happen with Martin o'neill's team.

togg

Exactly. We won't know which united has turned up until kick off tomorrow. I know we have lost a game or drawn one in the past at this time of the season and gone on to win the title, but I don't think we have ever lost one at this time of the season playing so bloody abysmally as we did against Wigan. People keep saying we have players who have been there before which makes a difference. Well Giggs was cack the other night, so I hardly think the younger players will have learnt anything from that.

Tbh...I really think Ferguson looked shocked the other day. Not that we lost, but the performance.

Anyway, enough bleating.....when we beat Villa 12-1 tomorrow I'll be smiling..

Relevated

oh boo hoo, City won a match but thats football, we need to reply and i believe we will.

pauldyson1uk

I am too , that why I posted that City could win all there remaining games 6-1

Cant believe that Mancini is praising that fucking arse now after all he said about him never playing for City again , taken from the BBC website

"I think we did well without Carlos for four or five months

Man-United

Tomorrow is not the problem, Everton is the more difficult game.

Villa will be without so many players.

togg

I think Everton's morale will be shot. We'll win it

Feed Me

If Villa are as depleted and poor as reported, we really need to batter them.

Everton will be a horrible game - its always nail biting against them.

Brwned

It wasn't in the league but the supposed side-effects of losing and performing in such a manner would've been the same in 06/07 when we got torn apart by Seedorf, Kaka and co. 3-0. We beat City in the next game and you can bet we'll beat Villa tomorrow. They've won 1 of their last 10 games for christ's sake.

MUFCgal

I think we'll win both games. Hopefully the Wigan result plus City's recent resurgence will kick us up the arse and spur us into action.

We'll all feel better if we're 8 points clear by the time City play next

Agent Red

By what measure have we not won the big games this season?
Win-Draw against Chelsea
Win-Win against Spurs
Draw-Win against Liverpool
Win-Win against Arsenal
Loss-? to City

The fact it's City and their home record is so good is what is concerning about that particular fixture, not our record in the big games this season. If anything, those stats suggest we might have the edge in the big ones.

Man-United

True, this reminds me a bit on the title race in 2009 when we had a 7 point lead with a game in hand over Liverpool, but then lost to both them and Fulham and it was title race back on.

After that, we won every game up until the Arsenal one were a draw was enough. Liverpool won and won as well but couldn't catch us.
The result at Wigan could be the one needed for us to kick on again.

Agent Red

And that's the key. For us as supporters today was not great viewing, seeing them so fired up.

But from a player's point of view you'd expect our lads to respond to that. Similar to at the beginning of the season when we'd match every 4-0 City win with a 5-0 one of our own. Ultimately it doesn't matter what City do as long as we do our job and win our games. Even losing the derby would be irrelevant if we won all the others, we can't be looking to City for favours at any point.

I'd expect our lads to be fired up tomorrow. At home, looking to avenge a poor performance mid-week and a big City result today. We should be up for it and I hope the fans are a noisy bunch tomorrow as well.

Relevated

Look at the 'on this day' thingy on the side of the homepage.

VeevaVee

This is the most worried I've seen United fans coming into the final run in. Usually I myself would be full of confidence. It's the lacklustre performances, strange team choices and slow paced football that's doing it. There's been too many games where we could've easily dropped points if not for one moment of magic. Too many where we've been level and hardly looked like scoring. Is it going to be enough? I bloody hope so or both our rivals could have a better season!

Thick Numpty

If worst comes to worst, and we go into the Sunderland game needing to win to win the title, would anyone have turned down the offer, at the start of the season, of a one off game away to Sunderland to be champions? You can bet Fergie wouldn't have turned it down.

If we can win our next two at home, lose to City and then beat Swansea at home to set up a last day match against Sunderland to win the league then I'll be happy enough. Obviously I'd rather we get something at City, but if not I'll happily take a match against Sunderland to win it.

Chabon

That's really not the worst it might come to, you know.

noodlehair

Perhaps I should have said important instead of big, but anyway, significant games we've had a complete mental brain fart in this season:

City (h)
Basle (a)
City (FA Cup) - I know we won but feck me, the second half deserved another 6-1 spanking.
Fulham (h) - again win, but easily the least assured I've ever seen a United side chasng a title look.
Wigan (a)

You can very nearly add the Liverpool home game to that too, if it hadn't taken Liverpool so long to realise we'd been in zombie mode for about the last 30 minutes.

Then there's other games like Benfica where we've cost ourselves by pissing about instead of driving the game home when in control. I thought we did that quite a lot last year too, but again, before that it wasn't something you'd ever see from us under Fergie. Even the Chelsea 3-3 game...yay great comeback, great spirit...but how about playing at the right tempo from the off and not ending up 3-0 down in the first place? There was no point in that game where Chelsea weren't there for the taking.

I think we are transitional to be fair. We've got a mix of players who've either got little left to prove or who are young and haven't really learn't how to be winners yet....but as far as this seasn goes that makes me genuinely nervous, as opposed to just "can we win this already?" nervous.

I wish we'd come out firing and prove a point by running Villa into the ground and spanking them tomorrow, but this simply wont happen. We'll go out, knock the ball around at about half the pace we're capable of, and either end up creating a nervous situation where we're not winning with 30 minutes to go, or get a goal or two up and then invite pressure on to ourselves when Villa up the tempo to try and get back in it.

I much prefered the completely mental kid side we put out in the first few games of the season. Hopefuly a sign of things to come in future seasons rather than a flash in the pan.

Thick Numpty

No, we could lose all our matches from here on in.

I was suggesting that I feel we can win our home games and that if the worst case scenario in the City game happens I'd still be happy going into the Sunderland game needing a win to win the title.

EricaNo7

And momentum, unfortunately