We’d need to go on a sustained run of bad form only really seen at the very start of the season, for us to feck it up from here. Even then that run wouldn’t even be enough to completely ruin it for us. I can’t see us collapsing that badly. But people love to worry.
Race for top 4 | Finito.
- Thread starter Andycoleno9
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) was joined by comedian Ali Woods to look back at the best and worst moments of a rollercoaster season with the annual United Hour Awards.
Has Ten Hag been sacked yet? We're not sure and we hope not, but it's looking more likely as the days pass.
Who should replace him and why is it taking so long to make a decision?
For a sustained amount of games? Sure we can lose one offs but that’s all it seems to be
Still can’t shake off the thought of those jammy scousers sneaking in.
We‘re not sneaking in anywhere. Not a hope in hell we’re making the gap to Newcastle in fourth up.
We’re a hot mess due to our stingy owners and frankly need an extensive refresh in midfield and defensive personnel over two to three transfer windows before we’re getting back into the champions league places.
When does the 5th place CL place thing kick in? Presumably if it was in effect now, you'd have a good chance of getting that
You've had your best squad in a long time over the last few seasons, but it's obviously come to that point where the best players are slowing down and it needs a rebuild, to get some younger legs with potential in amongst Van Dijk, Salah etc. With that in mind I think the Europa League would be alright for Liverpool next season while they put things in place
Also what is happening with the owners, are they still seeking investment to raise funds?
I don't have any faith at all in our away form and think we'll come away with two defeats from those three, which will leave things very tight by the time we kick off away at West Ham on 7th May. I reckon we will squeak top 4, but it will end up being much closer than some here are imagining and will probably go down to the final day.
It doesn't.
(Only for City if they win the CL and finish 5th)
It looks pretty set to me. I think Liverpool will run Newcastle and ourselves close enough but will just run out of games, finishing 5th 3 or 4 points of. Spurs won’t make up the ground now IMO - they could lose to literally anybody.
We are a game in hand of going one point behind Newcastle in third on the away table. If we aren’t dependable away from home then neither are the rest around us and it evens out.
Haven’t we learned about forecasting wins for other teams yet?
Edit have no idea how you’re predicting a Spurs win. That’s insane to me
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If we could win the next 3, that should see us home and dry.
We've won our last 3 PL games in a row without conceding and Newcastle have won 4 of their last 5.
Even if Liverpool did go on a great run, which I doubt anyway, they still need one of us or Newcastle to totally collapse and that just doesn't look like it's going to happen.
From season 2024/2025
They’re 9 points behind us and we have a game in hand.
Their owners are still looking for investment, It sounds like they know they need a major rebuild but dont want to pay for it themselves
Sounds familiar..
Next 3 are arguable our hardest remaining fixtures on paper. West Ham and Wolves are still not safe so they will be playing for survival but we should be winning those comfortably.
There won't be an automatic 5th place CL qualification for the EPL - UEFA's plan is for the 2024-5 season onwards to have 2 additional places awarded to the 2 countries who performed best in the previous year's CL. So if english clubs do well enough in next year's comp the PL would be in line for an additional place in the 24/25 competition.
Re liverpool, we're a mess mainly due to our owners continuing to think it's adequate to keep bringing a knife to a gunfight.
Thus far a combination of klopp's skill and some exceptional transfer activity in years gone by meant we continued to hang onto city's coattails, but at some the lack of transfer spending commensurate to revenue was going to lead to the cliff-edge drop we've seen this season. It's led to a mass exodus of unappreciated/unfulfilled senior staff who were responsible for our transfer infrastructure, and leaves the club somewhat directionless and at a crossroads.
Ideally I'd have preferred finishing this season in midtable so we could properly clean out the augean stables without the distraction of europa next season, but it's increasingly looking like they'll probably put together a run to scrape 5th or 6th.
The max points teams can reach
Villa - 69
Spurs - 71 - Have to play United, Pool and Villa
Pool - 71 -
Brighton - 76 - Have to play City, United, Newcastle, Arse and Villa ..
We are on 59 and have 24 to play for... Max we can get is 83.
Realistically, 66-67 points should do it.. Maybe Brighton and win 2 more games, it should be enough.
We should easily get more... unless there is a horrible collapse.
Its over.. nothing to see here.
Villa - 69
Spurs - 71 - Have to play United, Pool and Villa
Pool - 71 -
Brighton - 76 - Have to play City, United, Newcastle, Arse and Villa ..
We are on 59 and have 24 to play for... Max we can get is 83.
Realistically, 66-67 points should do it.. Maybe Brighton and win 2 more games, it should be enough.
We should easily get more... unless there is a horrible collapse.
Its over.. nothing to see here.
Even repeating our form at the start of the season would see us comfortably finish top 4. 5 wins and a draw from 9 would be more than enough.
We should benefit from a reduced fixture list over the next month, having a few full weeks off between games rather than the relentless schedule we've had since Christmas. This should allow us to pick up the points needed to secure top 4 so people should relax a little.
The Top 4 trophy has been done for ages now. It’s actually quite boring even talking about it but here I am.
I really fecking hope we’re back challenging for league titles again in the next few years rather than talking about if we will finish 3rd or 4th.
I really fecking hope we’re back challenging for league titles again in the next few years rather than talking about if we will finish 3rd or 4th.
Hair splitting here but in our first 8 games we won 5, and lost 3 (against City beside the first 2). If you want to use the EL defeat against Soceidad, it still put us on 4 win 4 defeat. So either 71 points or 74 points. It would require perfect winning streak from Tottenham and Liverpool to pip us at joint 71 points; or Brighton not to drop 6 points playing against Newcastle, Arsenal City, Aston Villa, and us.
Agree. It would require a collapse to ruin our top 4 finish. 13 from 8 points is especially feasible after dropping out of EL.
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Fighting on 4 fronts has been our downfall. We lack the squad the do so at this stage of our rebuild and ultimately we've fallen short. But for a time, pre and post world cup we were right up there, something none of us even considered back in August.
Maybe if we'd been knocked out of the League Cup or Europa early on, we might have had a bit more in the tank to make a real push in the League but thats not how United or Ten Hag operate.
The progress made this season should not be underestimated though. The sheer fact we are even able to look at a potential top 4 finish as a disappointment is exactly what United should be about.
Not sure how long "ages" has been, we were literally sat outside the top 4 just 3 games ago (albeit we had games in hand over Spurs).
We've put 3 league wins together on the bounce since which obviously changes the complexion massively, while Spurs have simultaneously collapsed.
We've recently gone on a run of 3 league wins in 8, and 3 leagues games without a win, so weird things can happen to put things back in the balance. We need to avoid repeating a similar bad run or there's a remote chance of undoing all our hard work that has come previously.
Those 8 games have come between 10 cup games, or 18 games in around 70 days. In that time we've lost several of our best performers through either injury or suspension.
When you look at our fixtures it's quite insane that we've played more cup games than League games in the past 2 months. The games agains Barcelona, whole fantastic spectacles were completely unnecessary in the grand scheme.
That's the most frustrating thing about cup competitions, when you get eliminated it feels like everything that came before it was a waste of time and an unnecessary detriment to your league form. Playing an extra round in Europa was a disaster, all we had to do was up our terrible goal difference in the group stage, and that 2nd half against Sociedad where we played Rashford at number 10, a back 3 with no wing backs, and Maguire up front still confuses me to this day.
Brighton can theoretically do it but on top of their difficult fixture list, they also play 9 games in 32 days.
We might have done well with a schedule like that but not everyone is United, has Bruno or EtH. They might struggle purely because of fitness.
Good for FPL though. Every other week they have A DGW.
We might have done well with a schedule like that but not everyone is United, has Bruno or EtH. They might struggle purely because of fitness.
Good for FPL though. Every other week they have A DGW.
Going out to Sevilla was a proper gut punch but if we look at the bigger picture, it will probably help us secure top 4 and allow us to go into the FA Cup Final sharper and with a bit of luck, with Varane back in the side.
And if any of us were offered top 4 and 2 cups at the start of the season, we'd have bitten the hand, arm and everything else off.
Well, our away form does worry me! At the moment I don't trust us to get anything away from home unless it's against the most inept teams in the league such as Forest the other week. I'd even take a draw right now v Spurs if offered, bad and all as they've been.
We've been better at home obviously, but even then it's like we need to create half a dozen gilt edged chances just to score one goal. So teams are still usually right in he game with us to the end, when we should be 3 goals up and cruising!
Not good for the heart!
Top 4 is practically done. You're there and theres no way you are missing out.
Nice try for the jinx. We don't believe you
For Utd, I personally don’t see these teams as a threat to over taking us:
- Liverpool - they can only get a maximum of 71 points now. That means we need just need 12 points out of the last 8 games (4 of which are at home). That’s also with the expectation Liverpool win every single game.
- Villa - again they only have 5 games left which makes it a maximum of 69 points. If we get a minimum draw against them at home they aren’t a threat either.
Spurs - same boat as Liverpool. Maximum they can get is 71 points too. If they beat us then I’d give them an outside chance.
Brighton are the only realistic threat mathematically but they have a tough run of fixtures too.
If we can win 3 out of 4 of our home games, I think that will be enough. Fulham, Wolves, Chelsea, Villa. We should be looking to win all them at home. It’s the away games where anything is a bonus really.
- Liverpool - they can only get a maximum of 71 points now. That means we need just need 12 points out of the last 8 games (4 of which are at home). That’s also with the expectation Liverpool win every single game.
- Villa - again they only have 5 games left which makes it a maximum of 69 points. If we get a minimum draw against them at home they aren’t a threat either.
Spurs - same boat as Liverpool. Maximum they can get is 71 points too. If they beat us then I’d give them an outside chance.
Brighton are the only realistic threat mathematically but they have a tough run of fixtures too.
If we can win 3 out of 4 of our home games, I think that will be enough. Fulham, Wolves, Chelsea, Villa. We should be looking to win all them at home. It’s the away games where anything is a bonus really.
Brighton and Liverpool dropping points tonight would be nice. It's not done yet with our terrible away record against decent opposition.
I’m saying that if we beat spurs!
make it thru next 3 games decently and top 4 is done. Tough little stretch that we cant overlook, especially with our injury report. If bruno cant play the next couple and rashford is still carrying a knock im not gonna be confident afterwards. Hope we get some good luck with other results so we dont have teams cutting down the gap quickly.
Liverpool are coming. We need those 12 points.
4 points by Sunday and I'll feel better.
4 points by Sunday and I'll feel better.
We'll be fine.
Should be, especially with no EL football. But you can't feel comfortable with Liverpool around... Knick things from right under your nose
Yeah, this was their only potential banana skin, on paper at least. They should win their last 6.
It'll go down to the wire if they do. At least Brighton are probably out now.
