Race for top 4 | Finito.

Leftback99

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One more tricky fixture against West Ham. If we could win there, then the coast is clear.

The team need to push a bit more to the finish line. The scheduling has been grueling this season. It feels like our opponents always have extra days rest.
IF we beat West Ham, "if we beat Spurs" , "if we beat Brighton". When the pressure is on don't count on this side.

And the coast is certainly not 'clear' after that.
 

BorisManUtd

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I think Brentford will give Liverpool a good fight and hopefully Leicester as one is still trying to make Europe and the other fighting to stay up.
Villa could put a good fight as well but we need one of those 3 teams to actually take some points off them. Spurs put a fight and got a comeback only to lose it from a horrible Moura mistake.
 

el3mel

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If we don't beat WHU, I bet we'll mentally completely collapse for the last few games even if they're easier.
 

kaiser00

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Weak mentality players will crumble again this season. This will go down to the last game.
 

Lights Out

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I’d think we were fine if it wasn’t the scousers chasing us down.
I know they’ve been shite but they know how to win ugly and they’re jammy as feck.
 

Barthez

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Draw today and it’s a good result. Some may even say following a point tonight, a draw to West Ham away is another point closer but in reality a loss night and win on a Sunday is the far better outcome. We just need 3 wins
 

awop

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There's no way you're not getting top 4 with a schedule of Moyes-Wolves and Lampard's army of zombies :lol:
 

Annihilate Now!

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Draw today and it’s a good result. Some may even say following a point tonight, a draw to West Ham away is another point closer but in reality a loss night and win on a Sunday is the far better outcome. We just need 3 wins
Yeah draw or loss doesn't really matter... Wanted us to win one of these next two games and we can still do that.
 

Dumbstar

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Feck me I just saw West Ham are in a proper relegation battle. A couple of bad results and they could be relegated. I thought the Sunday game was going to be a dead rubber for them. :eek:
 

always_hoping

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Not surprised United lost tonight with the away record against top 8 teams this season but the manner of it really annoying and frustrating.

Simply need to bounce back against West Ham on Sunday with a win. Won't be easy as Moyes rested a number of starters against Arsenal with Sunday his clear focus.
 

Leftback99

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Yeah draw or loss doesn't really matter... Wanted us to win one of these next two games and we can still do that.
Draw would have been far better, knocking Brighton out of the race and leaving us 2 wins and 2 draws away.
 

Telsim

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Please, no, not another Europa League (or worse) season. Rather finish 7th than that.
 

AjaxCunian

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Holding on to dear life to scrape for top 4 only to embarass ourselves in Europe just as we did under Ole?

No thanks, I really hope that the club and manager are really planning on how to make Man United play world class football again. Top 4 is surely important from financial point of view, but it has to be much more than that.
 

Mmm-Qatarian

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Everyone keeps citing our shite away form against the top 10 as proof that we'll get no points from West Ham or Bournemouth, so another statistic to add some variety to the discussion:
  • Out of a possible 24 points Manchester United could've taken away from home against sides in the bottom half of the Premier League table thus far, we have taken 20.
The only times we've dropped points away from home against a bottom half side this season were Chelsea and Crystal Palace. We're also yet to lose away from home against any of these sides.

The Eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed that both West Ham and Bournemouth (our two remaining away fixtures) are in this bottom half of the table. I'm not saying these will be easy games and we'll easily take three points from both, but it is equally worth keeping this context in mind before writing them both off as guaranteed losses.

Further, it's worth remembering that there of our remaining five games are at home. Our home form across all games this season has been excellent; we've taken 42 of a possible 48 points, losing only once on the first day of the season to Brighton.

Again, none of this guarantees us safe passage into the top four at the end of the season. With that said, though, I do think these stats are worth keeping in mind before the doom-mongering gets too out of hand.
 

InfiniteBoredom

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Draw would have been far better, knocking Brighton out of the race and leaving us 2 wins and 2 draws away.
Brighton is not racing for anything except the Conference League. You think they will get even 3 points against City, Assna and Barcodes?

It’s a disappointing loss, but the fundamentals of top 4 didn’t change. We need to win 3 of our last 5, all easy games on paper, or just 2 wins and 1 draw if Liverpool so much as even draw once.4
 

James35

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Draw today and it’s a good result. Some may even say following a point tonight, a draw to West Ham away is another point closer but in reality a loss night and win on a Sunday is the far better outcome.
True but a loss on Sunday will really test the fragility of this squad. Their arses will be twitching like a rabbits nose, add the fear of our biggest rivals chasing us whilst watching the best team in Manchester possibly win a treble. I personally wouldn’t be confident at all that this lot won’t choke.

Hopefully Brentford can help us out before the next game.
 

padzilla

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It's worth remembering that we needed a replacement for Ronaldo and came up with Weghorst, who wouldn't get a game for any other side in the PL.
 

MUFC OK

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I’m 50/50 on whether we get it now. If there’s one thing we know about this group of players it’s the more the pressure is on, the worse they perform.

pressure is on now.
 

DRJosh

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All things considered, do we genuinely deserve Top 4? If we continue wilting in the second-half of key games, Liverpool continue their rich vein of form and Newcastle continue their scoring ways, we'll have to accept we just aren't CL material.

The worrying thing is, at least 6 players need to leave. We wouldn't be able to rectify this in a single window. A poor decade of inapt club management has ruined us. I hope the Glazers get out.
 

Leftback99

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Brighton is not racing for anything except the Conference League. You think they will get even 3 points against City, Assna and Barcodes?

It’s a disappointing loss, but the fundamentals of top 4 didn’t change. We need to win 3 of our last 5, all easy games on paper, or just 2 wins and 1 draw if Liverpool so much as even draw once.4
Did you think they would beat us in the 94th minute? It's very unlikely but don't talk in certainties.

A draw would have made it easier, so it has changed.
 

MUFC OK

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Villa could put a good fight as well but we need one of those 3 teams to actually take some points off them. Spurs put a fight and got a comeback only to lose it from a horrible Moura mistake.
I agree, we aren’t getting 9 pts we need for it to be secured in our own hands.
 

Rojofiam

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This place is so predictable. Doom and gloom.

A bad result happens and the 'well, the worst possible scenario is all but confirmed now' replies start flooding in, even though we are still heavily favored to make top 4.

Same thing happens when Liverpool or City win a CL match: dozens of posters claiming that there's no way they won't win it now, etc.

If you all really think "it's done", then go ahead and put your money where your mouth is. Liverpool are 4.50 to make the CL, we are 1.16...but sure, it's done and "we bottled it".
 

FerociousCorgis

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It's worth remembering that we needed a replacement for Ronaldo and came up with Weghorst, who wouldn't get a game for any other side in the PL.
All shitting aside Felix prob would've got us a couple more points and top 4 would've been wrapped up by now.
 

sepulturite

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I’m 50/50 on whether we get it now. If there’s one thing we know about this group of players it’s the more the pressure is on, the worse they perform.

pressure is on now.
We'll get it, mainly because of our home form, win those 3 and we'll do it easily.
 

Irwin99

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Hardest game over and done with (sadly a crap 2nd half performance, crap result).

3 wins from 5 still gets it and I fancy us to beat West Ham at the weekend.
 

awop

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Brighton is not racing for anything except the Conference League. You think they will get even 3 points against City, Assna and Barcodes?

It’s a disappointing loss, but the fundamentals of top 4 didn’t change. We need to win 3 of our last 5, all easy games on paper, or just 2 wins and 1 draw if Liverpool so much as even draw once.4
Brighton beating Newcastle and getting a draw against Arsenal (or vice versa) would not be shocking at all. Plus their game against City could be played with City having already won the league.
 

Orange Tree

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IF we beat West Ham, "if we beat Spurs" , "if we beat Brighton". When the pressure is on don't count on this side.

And the coast is certainly not 'clear' after that.
After West Ham, we are back at one match a week schedule until Chelsea where we play at home. Our opponents won't have anything to play for, so hopefully they won't be overly motivated against us.

Of course anything can happen in football, but being hysterical about a possible implosion will only ruin your night.
 

Mmm-Qatarian

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I agree, we aren’t getting 9 pts we need for it to be secured in our own hands.
I mean do you seriously think it's beyond the bounds of possibility that we get nine points from West Ham away, Wolves at home, Bournemouth away, Chelsea at home and Fulham at home?

I'm not saying it's a guarantee but I seriously cannot fathom this attitude that it's not going to happen either.
 

BluesJr

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If I had some of your mentalities I honestly don’t think I’d survive.
 

FerociousCorgis

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Sunday is must win now for sure. Even getting a point would really not be enough. Only real hope of pool dropping points is against villa. Brighton aren't gonna beat all of their tough schedule. What sucks is most if we don't get top 4 means prob back in Europa and Thursday night games continue
 

DutchSerb

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We need 9 points to secure top 4. We still got Wolves, Bournemouth and Fulham in which we are huge favorites, we get Chelsea at home who are absolutely horrendous under Lampard and West Ham this weekend. I think that we'll pull it off, we at least get Garnacho back and maybe Varane? Don't know what his injury timetable looks like.
 

InfiniteBoredom

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Did you think they would beat us in the 94th minute? It's very unlikely but don't talk in certainties.

A draw would have made it easier, so it has changed.
It was always a possibility that we’d lose here, they are in good form and particularly high flying at home, so despite the manner, it wasn’t all that unlikely.

And no, it hasnt changed one bit, we still need to get 9 pts to be completely safe, against 1 relegation struggler and 4 teams who have nothing left to play for, some of them in utter shit form, 3 matches at home where we’ve been among the best in the league this season. It would require a complete and utter collapse akin to that under Rangnick to happen, and while we didn’t play well today, we didn’t collapse.
 

LARulz

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I remember when people were shit on for simply saying Newcastle might catch us for 3rd.
Yep

Its one thing being positive or thinking we'll be fine, but it's another having that confidence despite seeing how utterly drab we've been for well over a month
 

bosnian_red

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I think we need Liverpool to drop points to ease the pressure mentally and then we will go on to get the 9 points.
We have 10 points from our last 5 games, games where we were playing both tougher opponents than our last 5, and games where we played other competition games in between every single time, while the next 5 will be actually a normal schedule like everyone else has had for the first time since August. Nobody has played more games than United this season, and it's showing, but it should ease as well.

I don't think we are struggling with pressure, and I fully expect us to get probably 12 points from the last 15 available.
 

BluesJr

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Yep

Its one thing being positive or thinking we'll be fine, but it's another having that confidence despite seeing how utterly drab we've been for well over a month
What’s our home form like? What’s our away record against teams in the bottom half?