We can't win the league every year

adexkola

I've said this before, but people don't know what it means to throw something away/bottle something. Given the recent form of Everton and Wigan, the draw and loss were not throwing points away. Give credit where it's due, no 3 points are guaranteed in this league. A comeback does not imply bottling on the other end.

Leroy The Red

If being 4-2 up at home as the league leaders and throwing away that 4-2 lead with 10 minutes left isn't bottling or throwing points away then I don't know what fucking is.

adexkola

It can be called a good comeback. Everton are actually a good team, if not for their annual slump early in the season, they'd be fighting for a Champions league spot.

SmashedHombre

It's bottling. Of course it is. We took 1 point in 9. We bottled it.

Guy Incognito

That's the frustrating thing.

EricaNo7

Exactly. Playing - or trying to play - for a draw last Monday didn't help. I can't remember the last time we didn't have a threatening attack on goal.

Anderson's Cat

Anyone else feeling really depressed today?

Pogue Mahone

The fixture list can always throw up surprises. Nobody would have predicted Wigan's recent run of form/results and Everton obviously had a lot to prove after their limp performance against Liverpool in the FA Cup. Look at those games in context and the dropped points seem less surprising. Both teams played out of their skins against us. Taking them on consecutively meant we lost all momentum for the City game and gave their title push a massive shot in the arm.

That's the thing about football. There's always another team involved. Deciding that we "bottled" those games is a very simplistic way of looking at it.

Name Changed

I think we made a balls of it, but it didn't come down to "bottle", imho. The team has as much bottle and experience as anyone. We simply were not playing well enough, and some very bad tactical and team selection decisions were made in the 3 games in which we dropped points. I definitely think we have "bottle" though.

Only my personal opinion.

adexkola

Exactly.

SmashedHombre

Straight from the RAWK handbook on how to defend your league position when you drop points in games you really shouldn't have. We were 8 points clear, now we're not. That's a bottle job.

Pogue Mahone

If you say so.

Think there's a bit more to it than that myself. Goes without saying the RAWK comment is ridiculous. We're talking about two games, not an entire season of consistent under-performance.

Anderson's Cat

From the F365 Mailbox today.

Tomuś

^
Friend of mine said a similar thing about Fergie laughing and talking with 4 th official. As if he's never done that even when we.ve been one goal up. It was the strangest of come-backs I've seen this season across the europe. It wasn't fight-back by any means, they barely broke sweat there with 10 minutes to go.

They had 3 reasonable half chances in that second half and scored 3 goals. They were much much better in the first 45 minutes, yet they ended up with one goal. I guess it' just football for you.

Incredibly stupid, ridiculous, dumbfounding gaame that was. How on earth did they make it 4-4 I will never know. Never seen such thing in Football since I started watching the game.

The fact we defended like clowns this last 10 minutes didn't help, but it was in no way 'fight-back' so in that matter Fergie is right. We bottled it, simply. We've got only ourselves to blame. Have done extremely well to get there with all the injuries, but if you're 8 points clear with an easier list of remaining games to this of City's and still lost it, you have no excuses. It was one of the biggest bottling jobs since EPL began.

That saying, we haven't officially missed out yet, but that doesn't change the fact we need a miracle right now and we've put ourselves in that position on our own.

Bryan_Munich

'Bottling it' suggests failure under pressure.

As I remember it we weren't under any great pressure in the last 10 mins of the Everton game, we were in fact continuing to attack when there was no need to do so, it was carelessness and complacency that cost us.

Waltraute

No. I've gone through and emerged on the other side.

Best way to explain my feelings is through this quote from Hyperbole and a Half --

Tomuś

We were under pressure before the game and had to get the result. We didn't.
Same for Wigan, same for City. We have bottled it.

Will Absolute

My best theory of our failure to recruit midfielders in the last few transfer windows is that Fergie hasn't been able to get the players he wanted, and won't accept second best. He's figured that nobody we could actually sign is a significant improvement on the players we've already got - cows , fields, etc. - and has kept his money in his pocket.

Most of the Cafe have a different opinion.

fjred

There's been 2 teams involved for every leg of every trophy we've won but we've still won them. Even given the inconsistency we've shown this year, after the run we made since Christmas and the teams we'd beaten, clawing back the deficit, in the natural way of things we were expected, and should have, beaten Wigan and Everton.

To lose to Wigan was a surprise and, IMO, had a bigger effect by losing 3 pts. No matter how they played, out of their skins or not, there's very few who would have expected us to lose. To concede to Everton the way we did compounded the problem and it's no surprise that Fergie having seen those two matches, tried to play safety first against City. He recognised something had gone.

I don't know whether to call it bottle or not but we certainly collapsed for some reason in those 2 matches.

Bryan_Munich

It was the Everton game that cost us.

Pogue Mahone

Indeed. The pressure came in the first half. Our response was excellent.

I don't even think there's any need for deep psychoanalysis of how some sort of collective mental failing was behind what happened. Against Wigan we came up against a team that was in an incredible run of form. Just ask Arsenal and Newcastle.

Against Everton we just defended badly. Been a bit of a feature this season. Almost as if we sold two really reliable fullbacks and lost our best central defender for the whole season...

Tomuś

I would say so, yes. And we did bottle it then. The whole performance was shaky from the word go. We did have our 30 minutes spell in the second half, but we didn't show enough of grit, balls and professionalism to see them off. Very unlike Man United that was.

Then you would have thought we would actually do anything of note against City. Draw was for the taking, yet it was City who looked much more dangerous and simply the better side, even when we were in a position in which we had to at least give it a go.

Tomuś

Let's be honest lads, if this was Arsenal instead of us we would all be laughing our arses off, calling them bottlers, bunch of pussies etc.

Pogue Mahone

Why do you think that might be?

Bryan_Munich

No because we were continuing to attack.

That's not true either.

Tomuś

Because despite the fact I'm in the mains for something like 2/3 weeks, I've been spending a good amount of time here. And I've got to know football fans hypocrisy and double standards over the years.

Ummm. I see what you did there, yes, they always do that so here's the difference.

Adebesi

Don't buy that as an excuse. We are Man United. We are talking about Wigan. With all due respect to them, in the final straight of a league campaign we wanted to win, we should be able to beat them regardless of what form they are in.

Ubik

Whatever you label it, we sure as hell fucked up to an embarrassing degree.

Pogue Mahone

As should Arsenal and Newcastle. Instead they got their arses handed to them.

Football results don't always turn out the way they should though. Especially at this stage in the season.

RK

Bottling it would imply that the players let the occasion get to them, became nervous, and threw the game away as a result of the tension and their timid mentality.

If anything it was the opposite - we were too complacent.

Adebesi

Who cares about Arsenal or Newcastle tho? How are they relevant? Would rather not compare Man United to a couple of teams with no hope of winning the PL this year - or, frankly, any time soon.

Pogue Mahone

I don't care about them. I'm using them as evidence that Wigan were punching well above their weight when we played them.

Tomuś

Performances should though, especially in this stage of the season. We didn't look like champions against Wigan, not even close to that. In fact we weren't any better than against City. We won 1 out of 9 points possible in our 3 most important games of the season. Strange coincidence...

adexkola

By that logic, we should be winning all our matches, because, we're better than 18 of the teams in this league. It doesn't work that way though.

Bryan_Munich

Exactly.

Adebesi

Fair enough. My point stands tho. I see what you are saying but I don't buy it as an excuse. We should be able to beat Wigan, even if every one of them is playing the best game of their lives. Of course it won't always work out like that but us not beating them constitutes failure on our part. It is not excusable on the basis they were on good form. If they were on good form we should have been doubly focused. We weren't and so we only have ourselves to blame.

BD94

Whatever way you look at it, we threw it away. Obviously we can't win it every year, and I have accepted it when Chelsea have dominated the league and won it, but this year is different. Not because it's City, but becuase of the way in which we lost it. 8 points clear, we should never have lost that gap. Losing to Wigan, though frustrating, can be accepted as a blip. Every team has them in the run-in, so that should have been our only one. Then, vs Everton, when they came back from 3-1 to 3-2, and we scored soon after to go 4-2 you thought, "right, they've learnt their lesson. It's clear this Everton side can score, so lets take it handy for the last 10 minutes, lets take control of the game". But, what happened after was definitely throwing it away. Experienced players started to make silly mistakes, our midfield started to commit too far forward, etc.

Of course we can't win every year, but what makes this year different is how many warnings we got. As if losing to Wigan, and letting Everton come back to 3-2 wasn't enough, we then let them come back to 4-4. If you dont want to call it bottling it, then you must at least see that we threw it away.

Tomuś

There are games in the run in you simply have to win/draw if you want to be champions. Not always will you succeed, but for God's sake, we looked inferior to Wigan - that's worrying. I would have absolutely no problem with that 1-0 if we actually showed we really want it and deserve it.

City went to NUFC and eventually got their result. And it's not like Newcastle are going trhough a bad patch at the moment.

Sometimes you just have to get the result, we know it more than others as we've been the best at it for a long time.

Pogue Mahone

For me the one really unforgivable performance/result this season was Blackburn at home. That still rankles.

The rest were the sort of curve-balls you can get in any long season. It's only the timing and the fact that City got such a crazy amount of points which makes them seem more of a big deal than they should be.

Sunny Jim

I agree with you. Blackburn game was the killer, not Everton.