Man United’s form over the festive period reads 3 wins, 1 draw and a goal in open play for Wayne Rooney!
In comparison, Chelsea, who were bulldozing through teams early in the season, dropped 8 points. Wednesday night was the icing on the cake with Chelsea crashing at The Molineux, Arsenal and the expensive parked bus of Man City playing out a dull 0-0 draw, Spurs (who had been in good form) losing at Everton and Mame Biram Diouf helping Blackburn thrash Woy’s Liverpool.
The coast looks clear for Man United to race to #19 in the second half of the season.
I am not the most pessimistic of United fans, but nor am I the most optimistic, because as we all know, Man United always do it the hard way.
The main concern for United is away form. Winning only twice in 9 away matches is nothing to brag about despite being unbeaten and especially given United have not even played Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool (don’t laugh!) at their place yet. We have a fantastic home record with us only dropping points, rather cheaply, against West Brom but United have to improve away from home if the title is to come back to Old Trafford for a record 19th time.
One might argue that we haven’t done that badly, given the predicaments of our main challengers who have dropped silly points all over the place. I still think, though, that even if Arsenal, for example, have lost 3 times at home already and Chelsea have lost a horrendous 5 matches away from home, when we have to play them at their own ground, form will go out of the window! Apart from those 2, Spurs look very solid despite their recent loss and are not to be underestimated. As for Man City, we can all mock their pathetic attempts at playing for draws, but they are still up there in 2nd place. It is true that we have been barely out of second gear, so the popular conclusion is that God help the rest of the league once Man United decide to move into upper gears! But we could easily drop back into first gear or indeed come to a standstill as well!
In brief, we should not think the title is definitely ours now, with us being a potential 7 points from Arsenal, 8 from Man City, 11 from Spurs and 12 from Chelsea. This season is so open that that top 5 could be turned on its head in the matter of a few weeks! United fans are not wrong to feel optimistic though, because our strong advantage right now is that we have our destiny in our hands.
We know where we would like to be in the league table and we are exactly there. Top of the league, comfortably ahead of rivals with games in hand and more than decent goal difference, healthy in attack as well as defence, let’s not throw this away this excellent opportunity
Like you said, nothing can be taken for granted so we need to keep pressing. I also think for the sake of our legacy that we finish strong so that our record setting 19th League Championship won’t have a “won by default” moniker.
Definitely agree, don’t want there to be anything hanging over it!
I seemed to be aware about this previously, but nevertheless there was clearly some useful pieces that finished the picture to me, appreciate it!