This fantastic season is on the verge of blooming into everything we have desired, and more and thanks to the events at Goodison we are in theory a win, a loss and a draw away from the title. If you want to get into ifs and Nicky Butt’s, we could win it at Eastlands on Saturday but let us not get ahead of ourselves. Neither our manager nor the players will be getting ahead of themselves despite the excellent chance we have given ourselves. Everyone seemed to be looking at our game as a stumbler, and in turn completely underestimated Bolton’s chances to make life tough for Chelsea.
There is still work to do and our attention is pulled in yet another direction on Wednesday but once again thanks to our teams inability to accept when they are beaten, we are in a good position for the game against AC Milan at the San Siro. That game sums up the remaining weeks of the season, it’s going good but let’s not count our hatching chickens just yet.
Being in the driving seat counts for nothing if the destination is not a trophy or two.
But far from writing a simple ‘fist in the air’ update I wish to also bring to light two points that I heard from the media over the weekend. Rarely do journalists come up with something that I agree with or want to discuss further but this weekend it happened twice.
Point number one was that in the wake of the West Ham debacle the ownership of players should be looked into further. This is because Manchester United own currently both Tim Howard and Ben Foster, both number one first choice keepers for their respective clubs. The argument was that for top fixtures against Manchester United knew that they would have the second choice ‘keeper to beat rather than the first choice player that gets to play against our rivals Chelsea, Liverpool etc etc. Does that give us an advantage? Tim Howard will be available when Chelsea play Everton, but he was not against us and his replacement was thown in with a back four he had little knowledge of. I’m not saying that Tim Howard would not have made such mistakes against us but it made me think…
Point number two was made when a journalist said “When Manchester United won in Europe in ’68, Manchester City won the league and because of the United victory, no-one remembers the City triumph”. The journalist in question was using that example as a possible motivation for Chelsea to focus on Europe. Manchester United are now in such a strong position but maybe in the back of Jose’s mind he believes that if Chelsea gain the European Cup, Chelsea’s success will overshadow United’s potential winning of the league and his club may have gained the season’s higher ground.
Both of those points are interesting and when it comes to the European one, childish as it may seem, it’s now the reason I want us to gain victory in Europe too. I wasn’t too bothered about Europe, it was the bonus that could have been a distraction but if this jouno is right or there is even the chance that our league triumph is overshadowed by either Chelsea or Liverpool winning the champions’ league then by God let us win Europe too. Peddle to the metal, full throttle and any other throwaway yet inspirational lines you can think of. One thing I will not admit is that it’s good to have English teams in such strong positions in European competition, this is not an English thing, it’s only good to see Manchester United in such strong positions in the competition.
Big thanks to Big Sam…who was obviously so flattered to hear that Ferguson wanted to hug and kiss him for holding Chelsea to a two all draw, that he quit the next day.
Given to Score 