27 Feb 2017 09:52:49
Well a win is a win, and it should breed that winning mentality.
Southampton can feel a little hard done by, they scored a perfectly fine goal which was scrubbed off. I can garentee if we lost that game after having a good goal ruled out we would all be up in arms.
For large parts of the game Southampton were the better team. You can put that down to having two weeks to prepare, or having a nothing to lose mentality.
But we dug deep, and proved that championship winning mentality to grind out a result without playing well.
I think that sets us up well for next season. A few more quality signings and we will be right up there again challenging on all fronts next season.
As for the rest of this season we clearly need more rotation, Mkhitaryan was a big miss yesterday. He was injured in a game he didn't need to be playing in. That could have cost us a cup, luckily it didn't.
Chelsea was the worst draw we could have got in the FA cup. Jose wil want to beat them and can't really rest people in that game. But if we do get knocked out against Chelsea it won't be the worst result, going out to the probable champions while also giving us less games during a frantic run in wouldn't be the end of the world.
I think we have to try and win the Europa League, we could go unbeaten for the rest of the season in the league and still not finish in the top 4.
At least 2 or 3 of the teams that we should be concerned about in the Europa League will be knocked out in the next round. That should make us clear favourite if we get past Rostov, although in a cup competiton anything could happen. Where as we need two of Liverpool, City, Spurs and Arsenal to drop enough points for us to claw our way into the top four. I'm still very confident we can do that, but we can't afford to throw away a golden chance in the Europa League.
Either way Jose needs to start resting a few key players. Start Zlatan on the bench against lower league oppositon for example. You can always bring him on if needed.
Players like Blind, Schweinsteiger, Lingard, TFM, Rooney, Rashford and Young need to be played and relied on more, all are good players and none of them are likely to let us down. The use of those players could be the difference between a good season and a great one.
27 Feb 2017 12:33:10
Nice post Shappy.
Agree but problems have come against the smaller clubs.
I think with Young staying, Rooney and Carrick back fit we will see some more rotation.
But when you look at TFM vs Herarra there is big difference in quality.
27 Feb 2017 13:21:39
Shappy I see where you are coming from in terms of resting. But in Zlatan's case only Zlatan can bench himself. Even Jose will steer clear if Zlatan decides that he is fit to play 😂😂.
27 Feb 2017 13:45:03
Thats why Jose is paid all the money and has the reputation he has.
He HAS to make the big calls. I have no doubt that we have the ability to challenge for top four as well as the FA cup and Europa league. But if we were to get to both cup finals then out last 5 games of the season would include away trips to Spurs and Arsenal along with tough cup finals. The risk of burn out is very real.
I don't wanna just miss out on top four followed up with two cup final loses.
Make no mistake we got lucky yesterday, we were knackered yet still have potentially 20 games left this season. If you think we can keep on going the way we are and beat better teams than Southampton playimg as we are you might be disapointed.
27 Feb 2017 21:21:53
Shappy, I don't think Jose will want to lose against Chelsea and in his mind, it will be a disaster.
Rostov are a very good outfit. They beat bayern Munich and have gone 20 odd games unbeaten at home. So make no mistake, Europa league will be extremely hard to win.
I honestly think that top 4 could be achieved. We have to play our top 4 opponents and anything can happen in these games. I think Liverpool and arsenal are both looking inconsistent. So there is a chance providing we do the business.