16 Points - Sense of Perspective

[Jamoid]

We have SWANSEA, HUDDERSFIELD and BRIGHTON at home who are all fighting relegation they know a draw won't be enough which means they have to go for the win,having no other distractions it will be full strength team in all three games we will win all three Titles won. Easy

 

[Exeter Blue I am here]

You make some sensible points, IMO. I don't think Pep got it badly wrong against Liverpool or The Rags. I'd have preferred him to do some things differently and have my own opinions on what I would have done differently but, as I keep saying, none of us knows if the final outcomes would have been different. What matters now is that whoever plays in the next two games actually performs for 90 + minutes.

We disagree on that score for sure. When your manager comes out and says “we know Liverpool like the way we play, but we’re not going to change the way we play” (or words to that effect), it was alarm bell time. Leaving Sterling out I could understand because he’s been awful every time he’s gone back there, but replacing him with Gundogan rather than Bernardo, was baffling. It threw the whole team out of shape, left Walker with no protection to the point that on one occasion Robertson carried the ball all the way from their penalty area to ours, and meant all our width had to come via Sane, who chose that night to have one of his occasional stinkers. Meanwhile Kev was wasted back in his own half.
And with the world and his wife knowing that you have to sit tight for 30 minutes or so at Klanfield to draw the sting of the front three and quieten the monkeys in the stands down, we did what we always do, pushed forward, lost possession and found ourselves behind with barely 12 minutes on the clock, and in the process turned the place into a bear pit. It was a poor team selection compounded by poor tactics and poor game management.
As to yesterday, with the 2nd leg against the dippers a pipe dream, everyone I knew was pretty much universally agreed beforehand. Full strength team and go for what was a once in a lifetime opportunity. You don’t ever open the door for a team as lucky or as smiled upon by officialdom as the rags. You stand on their throats and you crush their windpipes, lest they should get the slightest chance to get up off the floor and chiv you. As Don King used to say “Never give a sucker an even break”. The chances of the rags winning the league are still small, but I all but guarantee you they’ll win all their remaining games, so we now can’t afford any fuck ups against teams scrapping for their Premiership lives. I haven’t felt so gutted about a match as yesterday in years

 

[BLUEMATT23]

Having calmed down a bit looking at the next few fixtures rationally we should be fine.
Tottenham is difficult but it's at Wembley so in essence it's a neutral venue where generally we have played well the last few times. Also Spurs have more or less nailed a CL place and it won't matter really if they finish 2nd 3rd or 4th. Maybe they will be looking to their FA CUP semi vs the winners of the "We beat City to stop them winning the league trophy" the Rags.

Also if Swansea win vs Everton at weekend they should be safe so pressure off and West Ham should they beat Stoke next week would be more or less safe.
So maybe vs Swansea or Vs West Ham we can get over the line.
Fingers crossed.

 

[mancity1]

We disagree on that score for sure. When your manager comes out and says “we know Liverpool like the way we play, but we’re not going to change the way we play” (or words to that effect), it was alarm bell time. Leaving Sterling out I could understand because he’s been awful every time he’s gone back there, but replacing him with Gundogan rather than Bernardo, was baffling. It threw the whole team out of shape, left Walker with no protection to the point that on one occasion Robertson carried the ball all the way from their penalty area to ours, and meant all our width had to come via Sane, who chose that night to have one of his occasional stinkers. Meanwhile Kev was wasted back in his own half.
And with the world and his wife knowing that you have to sit tight for 30 minutes or so at Klanfield to draw the sting of the front three and quieten the monkeys in the stands down, we did what we always do, pushed forward, lost possession and found ourselves behind with barely 12 minutes on the clock, and in the process turned the place into a bear pit. It was a poor team selection compounded by poor tactics and poor game management.
As to yesterday, with the 2nd leg against the dippers a pipe dream, everyone I knew was pretty much universally agreed beforehand. Full strength team and go for what was a once in a lifetime opportunity. You don’t ever open the door for a team as lucky or as smiled upon by officialdom as the rags. You stand on their throats and you crush their windpipes, lest they should get the slightest chance to get up off the floor and chiv you. As Don King used to say “Never give a sucker an even break”. The chances of the rags winning the league are still small, but I all but guarantee you they’ll win all their remaining games, so we now can’t afford any fuck ups against teams scrapping for their Premiership lives. I haven’t felt so gutted about a match as yesterday in years

You can get some good odds on the rags winning their last 6 games , Bournemouth away , Arsenal at home and West Ham away are all tricky ties for them.

I expect them to finish on 84 points.

In saying that having a record of 27-3-2 hardly gives one the feeling that we cannot pick up 5 points in our remaining 6 games , Spurs will obviously be difficult but you can get 2000/1 to for Manure winning the title even though we all know it should already be over.

 

[Franny 1234]

We disagree on that score for sure. When your manager comes out and says “we know Liverpool like the way we play, but we’re not going to change the way we play” (or words to that effect), it was alarm bell time. Leaving Sterling out I could understand because he’s been awful every time he’s gone back there, but replacing him with Gundogan rather than Bernardo, was baffling. It threw the whole team out of shape, left Walker with no protection to the point that on one occasion Robertson carried the ball all the way from their penalty area to ours, and meant all our width had to come via Sane, who chose that night to have one of his occasional stinkers. Meanwhile Kev was wasted back in his own half.
And with the world and his wife knowing that you have to sit tight for 30 minutes or so at Klanfield to draw the sting of the front three and quieten the monkeys in the stands down, we did what we always do, pushed forward, lost possession and found ourselves behind with barely 12 minutes on the clock, and in the process turned the place into a bear pit. It was a poor team selection compounded by poor tactics and poor game management.
As to yesterday, with the 2nd leg against the dippers a pipe dream, everyone I knew was pretty much universally agreed beforehand. Full strength team and go for what was a once in a lifetime opportunity. You don’t ever open the door for a team as lucky or as smiled upon by officialdom as the rags. You stand on their throats and you crush their windpipes, lest they should get the slightest chance to get up off the floor and chiv you. As Don King used to say “Never give a sucker an even break”. The chances of the rags winning the league are still small, but I all but guarantee you they’ll win all their remaining games, so we now can’t afford any fuck ups against teams scrapping for their Premiership lives. I haven’t felt so gutted about a match as yesterday in years

Great post EXETER BLUE.
I agree with it all apart from the rags will drop some points still this season.
C.T.I.D

 

[TheThirdDeano]

I think that as a fanbase we just don’t know how to handle success.

All our lives we’ve had minimal success on the pitch between the odd trophey wins here and there and now that we’re getting it regularly we’re worried we’ll lose it all in a second again so all wins are ignored but all negatives are intensified.

The entire club from top to bottom STILL needs a reframe of mind.

 

[oxopop]

I think that as a fanbase we just don’t know how to handle success.

All our lives we’ve had minimal success on the pitch between the odd trophey wins here and there and now that we’re getting it regularly we’re worried we’ll lose it all in a second again so all wins are ignored but all negatives are intensified.

The entire club from top to bottom STILL needs a reframe of mind.

some truth in your post pal, if we flip it the utd fans would be relishing our position and enjoying it but a lot of blues seem to be shi***ng themselves!! i expect the points difference to drop but we are still in an unbelievably good position, we are the best team in this league by some distance and we will win it by some distance!

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

We have SWANSEA, HUDDERSFIELD and BRIGHTON at home who are all fighting relegation they know a draw won't be enough which means they have to go for the win,having no other distractions it will be full strength team in all three games we will win all three Titles won. Easy

I saw a lot of people on Saturday at HT who thought much the same thing. It's not over till we have the requisite number of points that make it mathematically impossible for the non-World Cup bound referees to influence any game beyond what actually happens in those games. And in those games what chance of having any three from Taylor, Mason, Pawson, Madely or Atkinson back for his greatest moment, now he's not going to the World Cup!

 

[rossie]

if at the beginning of the season if someone said we would be 13 points clear with 6 games left, we would ecstatic , so ok we lost against the rags , but come on the overall target is in our reach , almost achieved in fact . no need to get down , we are going to be CHAMPIONS OF ENGLAND and you know what, those giddy rags would swap places with us in a heartbeat

 

[OB1]

We disagree on that score for sure. When your manager comes out and says “we know Liverpool like the way we play, but we’re not going to change the way we play” (or words to that effect), it was alarm bell time. Leaving Sterling out I could understand because he’s been awful every time he’s gone back there, but replacing him with Gundogan rather than Bernardo, was baffling. It threw the whole team out of shape, left Walker with no protection to the point that on one occasion Robertson carried the ball all the way from their penalty area to ours, and meant all our width had to come via Sane, who chose that night to have one of his occasional stinkers. Meanwhile Kev was wasted back in his own half.
And with the world and his wife knowing that you have to sit tight for 30 minutes or so at Klanfield to draw the sting of the front three and quieten the monkeys in the stands down, we did what we always do, pushed forward, lost possession and found ourselves behind with barely 12 minutes on the clock, and in the process turned the place into a bear pit. It was a poor team selection compounded by poor tactics and poor game management.
As to yesterday, with the 2nd leg against the dippers a pipe dream, everyone I knew was pretty much universally agreed beforehand. Full strength team and go for what was a once in a lifetime opportunity. You don’t ever open the door for a team as lucky or as smiled upon by officialdom as the rags. You stand on their throats and you crush their windpipes, lest they should get the slightest chance to get up off the floor and chiv you. As Don King used to say “Never give a sucker an even break”. The chances of the rags winning the league are still small, but I all but guarantee you they’ll win all their remaining games, so we now can’t afford any fuck ups against teams scrapping for their Premiership lives. I haven’t felt so gutted about a match as yesterday in years

I don't have time for a long response. I would have preferred him to do much of what you suggest but it's a matter of degree how wrong you think he got it and I do believe that with managerial decisions it is often not as simple as we lost ergo the manager got it (badly) wrong but that all gets a bit philosophical.

I also think, for instance, that it was valid to either rest players for Tuesday or not. We'll probably look back now and decide it was the wrong call but even with such a mountain to climb, the case for prioritising the UCL at this point is strong.

If everything goes to shit, I'm sure Pep will hold his hands up and say he judged it wrong and fall on his sword.

Oh and let me assure you, I am as gutted as anyone.