seems every week we need another win to cement top 4, the same was said before the games against both West Ham and Brighton
Top 4 race / race abandoned (or maybe not) / Leicester & Chelsea in the process of bottling it
- Thread starter Andycoleno9
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
It's been that way for a while for me.
It was weeks ago I said it would take a proper collapse to miss out on top 4.
100% there will be people saying the same thing next week even if we win today. Endless train of misery.
Haven't seen the schedule of all top 4 contenders yet but Leicester are sucked right back into it with their loss today, think 3 and 4 are really up for grabs (and hope that Leicester and Liverpool prevail). Utd, even with a loss today, is quite safe, can't see them collapsing that bad and three other teams jumping over them.
It's 4-5 teams fighting it out for 2 spots now.
On paper, Chelsea and Everton have the toughest schedules left (and Everton are only in it for me if they win their two games in hand). Chelsea likely to have two CL semis during the run-in as well.
Liverpool, Tottenham and West Ham all have relatively easy schedules to end the season. Leicester has an easy one until May when they close out with Utd, Chelsea and Tottenham - as tough as it comes but they're still in the best position as of right now.
I don't think we're playing well enough right now to go on a winning run and finish the season strongly so the odds are still against us at the moment but still gonna go with West Ham and us getting top 4.
Spurs are only in it if we beat you at OT imo.
Need to beat Burnley next week to cement our spot
Am I doing it right?
Am I doing it right?
Haha yes
Come log on Glaston...you feckwit...
TBF to my possible inclusion in these 'digs', my initial post of the day was asking who we should want to win in West Ham v Leicester - ideally a draw - saying "They play before us, so we don't know if we'll later lose and open up the door a bit for those behind us, or if we win and are focusing more on tying up 2nd place."
It's only when the debate focused on 4th place being tied up even if we lose that I focused on that. Us winning and focusing on at least 2nd place was part of my initial scenario. And it's great that that's what happened.
That's Spurs finished.
If only the league could finish today - this top 4 would be fantastic.
You do fear for Leicester now - I reckon Liverpool and Chelsea will (sadly) make it.
| City | 74 |
| United | 63 |
| Leicester | 56 |
| West Ham | 55 |
| Chelsea | 54 |
| Liverpool | 52 |
| Spurs | 49 |
If only the league could finish today - this top 4 would be fantastic.
You do fear for Leicester now - I reckon Liverpool and Chelsea will (sadly) make it.
I think Liverpool will make top 4 - not sure about the other spot though. It's between Leicester, West Ham and Chelsea, Spurs are most likely out of the race after this loss. Would be super fun if Everton could somehow get into the race but highly unlikely imo, it seems they just can't get good results consistently.
It's fun to spectate a CL battle when we have already pocketed a place.
Conversely, I can finally remember the excitement of challenging for it to potentially the last day. It's been a while. I have my fixtures all set up and ready for each team involved.
If we can seal 2nd place by the time we play Leicester I wouldn't necessarily be angry if we rolled over for them if it aided in Chelsea or Liverpool not getting top 4.
haha ultimate shithousery , 100% agree
If you are a Manchester United fan, please leave this thread. You have no business here.
538 have United at >99% to make top 4 now, along with City.
Liverpool 58%, Leicester 54%, Chelsea 46%, West Ham 35%, Spurs 6% and Everton 1%.
Liverpool 58%, Leicester 54%, Chelsea 46%, West Ham 35%, Spurs 6% and Everton 1%.
Was going to post this but agree with these numbers.
4 way race for 2 spots and you unfortunately feel like Leicester and West Ham are going to choke.
Liverpool and Chelsea are two of the top ten sides in Europe, and that is probably underselling them. Very difficult for the second tier sides to beat them over 38 games.
I don't think Liverpool makes it. I still remain utterly unconvinced by them.
Spurs were fecked once his plan to win the EL went out of the window.
Agree that it is slightly underselling them.
I would put them as somewhere between 5 and 8.
something like this (alphabetically)
Top 4 - Bayern, City, PSG, RM
Next 4 - Barca, Chelsea, Liverpool, United
Next 4 - Atletico, Inter, Juventus, Leipzig
Next 8 - Arsenal, Atalanta, BvB, Leicester, Sevilla, Sociedad, Spurs, Villarreal
That said, Lille who in my reckoning are not even in the top 20 sides in Europe are still holding PSG off who are a top 4 side so Leicester and Rodgers choking a top-4 spot in the run-in would be bad.
I'm the opposite I think their experience will mean they knuckle down and get the required results nessesery to make it comfortably in the end, even if the performances don't warrant them.
Similar to us in 10/11 when we were utterly hopeless for the most part but managed to shit house second.
Arsenal have no business being there mate and you've left out Milan who are ahead of Juve and Atalanta. Ajax also in with a shout in that Next 8 tier imo and personally I'd have the likes of Sporting Lisbon and Porto over Arsenal as well. Arsenal barely scraped past a middling Benfica who are 3rd in Portugal at the moment.
Man city, man United, Liverpool and Westham.. my top4
How many points do you guys think we need to be mathematically assured of 2nd? 4 more wins?
If Lingard can fire West Ham ahead of Liverpool and Chelsea that would be nice.
Even if beating Liverpool might not be needed for us to get top 4 a win could stop Liverpool and could still be gold.
Massive game against them still, but we may be forced to rotate for Europe?
Even if beating Liverpool might not be needed for us to get top 4 a win could stop Liverpool and could still be gold.
Massive game against them still, but we may be forced to rotate for Europe?
That’s normal though as Champions league is a much bigger competition than EPL or any domestic league.
Hmm, just did the predictor for the rest of the season. I felt I did it very impartially and ended up with:
West Ham -72
Liverpool - 69
Leicester - 68
Chelsea - 68
Big gap to Spurs on 61 and Arsenal/Everton on 59.
Those predictions had the following records for the remaining games:
West Ham - 5 wins (Newcastle, Burnley, Everton, WBA, Southampton), 2 draws (home Chelsea and away Brighton)
Liverpool - 5 wins (Leeds, Newcastle, South, WBA and Palace), 2 draws (us and Burnley - both away)
Leicester - 3 wins (WBA, Palace, Newcastle), 3 draws (away to Southampton and Chelsea, home to Spurs) and 1 loss (at Old Trafford)
Chelsea - 4 wins (Brighton, Fulham, Arsenal, Villa), 2 draws (away to West Ham and home to Leicester), 1 loss (away to City)
Shows how tight it will be. Those H2Hs between WH/Chelsea and Chelsea/Leicester could be critical.
West Ham -72
Liverpool - 69
Leicester - 68
Chelsea - 68
Big gap to Spurs on 61 and Arsenal/Everton on 59.
Those predictions had the following records for the remaining games:
West Ham - 5 wins (Newcastle, Burnley, Everton, WBA, Southampton), 2 draws (home Chelsea and away Brighton)
Liverpool - 5 wins (Leeds, Newcastle, South, WBA and Palace), 2 draws (us and Burnley - both away)
Leicester - 3 wins (WBA, Palace, Newcastle), 3 draws (away to Southampton and Chelsea, home to Spurs) and 1 loss (at Old Trafford)
Chelsea - 4 wins (Brighton, Fulham, Arsenal, Villa), 2 draws (away to West Ham and home to Leicester), 1 loss (away to City)
Shows how tight it will be. Those H2Hs between WH/Chelsea and Chelsea/Leicester could be critical.
I’m probably the only one whose looked at our game in hand, City’s fixtures.... and think a City collapse is not beyond impossible. Winning our game in hand takes us 8 points behind, can see City losing 2 games. And then things becoming very tasty.
There are quite a lot of permutations currently, given the matches between some contenders, but 4 wins gets us to 75 points and is guaranteed top 4 (given the matches between them, 74 points is the maximum points 3 of our rivals can all reach).
Don’t do this to yourself.
We choked the title race away with 7 dropped points against Leicester, Sheffield and Everton. City isn’t going to collapse the way we did in 11/12 with 6 games to go (and even then, they got a game against us back then, we’ve already played them H/A this season).
Can but dream. But I think the most unrealistic thing might not be City losing two games, but us taking advantage if does come to that and the ante suddenly ups
I thought our fixtures seems tough. Those are the teams we struggle with usually.
Good thing we have some points on them to make up.
On the other hand, we seem to concentrate more against tough teams.
Good thing we have some points on them to make up.
On the other hand, we seem to concentrate more against tough teams.
would have liked to see both Leicester and West Ham ahead of Chelsea and Liverpool in the CL places but I've got a feeling Brendan's gonna bottle it again.
Football bloody hell!
I would be very happy if we finish less than 7-8 points behind them. Some may disagree but I think that will be positive for the squad and supporters
Arsenal? Come on, they're not in the same bracket as Leicester, Atalanta and Sevilla anymore, their season form is so awful. I'd put Bayer, Milan, Napoli, Wolfsburg, and Lille, etc ahead of Arsenal
Yeah fully agree. This top 4 seems surreal but I think that Chelsea and Liverpool will overtake West Ham and Leicester.
They won’t be that consistent until the end, no way Lingard keeps playing on this level.
That being said I do not really care about what is going behind us. Glad to have top 4 more or less sealed, which helps us concentrating on the EL and starting to think about what we really need in the summer.