With Everton holding the Gunners to a goalless draw at the Library, we can now leap-frog them and regain our rightful spot in the top 4, simply by beating £ity. If this does not give our players the incentive they need to go out and play like winners, then we really don't deserve CL footy next season. Would it really be too much to expect, for example, Ade to finally find his goal-scoring boots against his former club? Then again, if we do win, I can see us finishing top 4, and finally becoming the Daddies of Europe, next season.
Agents Jol and Berbs can do us a favour by winning their next two matches. I can see us beating £iteh and Chavski and then losing to Stoke and/or Sunderland.
Incentive to play like winners? fine bit of chest thumping Hiag, but the reality is City are playing very well, and any negative result here does not reflect whether we 'deserve' CL football or not. I don't think deserve is the right phrase anyway.
City are back on form and so even if it's "in our hands" I think it'll be a very hard ask of our players to beat them, especially as we're missing a good few key players. A draw would be a positive result. A win would be an outstanding achievement. But a loss is likely, hate feeling negative about this but deep down can anyone really see us getting 3 points from this with such a weakened squad? If Bale, Lennon and Defoe were all back 100% fit then I'd be more optimistic but it's looking 50-50.
3 points against city would be a massive result and we're due a win against them. we've been very unfortunate in the last 2 or 3 games. However, a point would still be a very good result. - They've only lost 4 all season, so a win is asking a lot. Unfortunately, it appears that City, (with their 2 games in hand to consider) have probably done enough now, so it's very unlikely they'll get brought back into the pack. It's looking to me like we're going to have to go and beat chelsea away, which couldn't be a worse fixture to have to play, based on our record. The only saving grace is that under Benitez you just don't know what chelsea team is going to turn up.
I would have us as favourites in 4 of our 6 games. If we can play to our max and pick up a point or two against City and/or Chelsea then that should be enough. Chelsea have only tough games left. Tonight v Fulham at Craven Cottage and at home to Swansea are their easiest, but neither easy given the form Fulham are in. Laudrup will want to make a point by giving a good performance against one of the top teams. They'll have to be on it now to stay in the mix.
Arsenal play Fulham on Saturday so we'd still need them to lose that for us to go straight back to 4th. I understand it's nice to have it back in our own hands for morale but realistically, each side competing for the top 4 is going to drop points in their last 5/6/7 games. Arsenal dropping points last night just helped us in that it takes some of the pressure off our game with City, were we not to win, Arsenal won't be riding off into the distance like they could have been had they won and gone on to put 9 points between us and them before Sunday.
I agree about favourites in 4 of 6, but I'm almost convinced that we'll drop points in at least 1 of those games.
Same. Wigan's going to be tough because Martinez really gets them playing at this time of year and Southampton have outplayed several top teams since Pochettino took over. I for one am hoping Stoke get some points before they play us, if relegation's out of the picture their fans will probably be more concerned with letting Pulis know how they feel than getting behind the team and whilst Sunderland never give us an easy game, I feel those last 2 are our best chances of picking up 3 points.
Wigan's probably the toughest team to face this time of the season. The spirit of Barcelona players possesses them!
I like our chances against Man City at home, even with a badly weakened squad, more than Chelsea away, unless Lennon is back to his best against Chelea, which I very much doubt.
I've no idea why you were convinced we'd struggle at Fulham, IMO it was clutching straws at best. Fulham's best results have come when they have been able to get men behind the ball, be difficult to beat and counter effectively. Those kind of tactics are why they haven't lost away to Chelsea, Arsenal or Spurs all season but conversely will lose to all three at CC because you can't do that at home. Arsenal will beat Fulham easily IMO, the teams with nothing to play for can be labelled as "easier" games but I'm not so sure I care who we play, all about form and momentum. Sunderland (home or away) will no longer be an easy game for anyone. Liverpool will be tough but they have virtually nothing to play for, the same applies to Swansea, the same applies to United. I'd rather play them. Take out the City and Chelsea games, and there is a big possibility all of the teams you face my have to win to stay up
Just thought they were in good form before the game. In our recent game they looked good. But yes, probably hope over expectation.
Agree with most of this DL, but the Mousers are the Joker in the pack, as their form doesn't appear to have anything to do with any relevance of the game in question. Their inconsistency could mean you end up playing potential Top 4 or Bottom 6!! Bizarre club.....
