Realistic Expectations For The Rest of The Season/Huge Jinx Thread

Cruella ne Ville

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Premier League:
Third place. 16 points back with a game in hand.
6 points ahead of 5th place Newcastle who have a game in hand and a superior goal difference. 2 points up on Spurs with a game in hand.

FA Cup:
Quarters. City, Brighton, Fulham the only other PL sides remaining.

Europa League:
Quarters. Sporting, Roma, Juve, Feyenoord, Fenerbahce, Sevilla (whoops), Leverkusen, USG

The league is gone. We probably have a 3 point lead on Newcastle and a 5 point cushion to Spurs, and SHOULD finish in the top 4. Anything less would be a massive disaster.

On paper, we're favourites against every side bar City in both of the cups. As Arsenal can attest, games aren't played on paper, but there is a very realistic path to top 4 and 2 more cups.

How do we see the rest of the season playing out, and more interestingly, what is the bare minimum you'd take and still consider the remainder of the season a success? Would you be happy finishing 4th and getting dumped out of the cups by say Brighton/Roma in the semis?

For me, finishing 3rd and one of the two remaining cups is the minimum. Getting beat by City in the FA Cup would be gutting, but they're a good side and that stuff happens. Ditto, the EL. Sometimes you get beat, but we are better than all the sides left, and if we don't win it, we've missed a trick. If we have actually turned a corner under ETH, and are 'back' to the point where we can legitimately challenge for the serious trophies, we need to prove it and win at least one of the cups (probably the EL), and go out valiantly in the other (to City in a close match that could've gone either way.) Honestly though, we should be winning both, and anything less will be a disappointment.
 
I think consolidate third place in the league is the priority anything else is a bonus, to fall away in the league now would be gutting but you can see the team is looking very tired.

Martial turning up for the last leg of the season would be a massive bonus but lets be honest who's counting on that. Hopefully Garnacho isn't out for to long as he's our main impact player off the bench.

There's rumours that Eriksen could be back after the international break which would be a relief as we have missed him.

In terms of the other cups the Europa is going to take a big effort, there's still 5 games to play in that one but I'd like to win it a european trophy even if it is the second rate one shouldn't be sniffed at.

FA Cup to me is lowest priority we've had our day out at Wembley but at a club like Utd you have to breed that culture where every game matters so I don't expect ETH to take his foot off the gas in that one.
 
If we were to finish 3rd and nick another cup I would consider that a fantastic season.
If we were to finish 3rd with just the Carabao I would certainly have accepted that last August so I will be satisfied and looking forward to us kicking on next season.
In Erik we trust!
 
I think we'd all have taken top 4 and a trophy before the season started, and certainly after the first two matches, but the progress since then has increased expectations. A big part of kicking on next season is how we finish this season.

Being in a fantastic position to win two cups but failing to win either would be a backward step, especially for this squad who has history of being nearly men. Finishing second didn't help them kick on under Ole, nor did getting to the EL final. Winning one of the two trophies would reinforce the impact ETH has had and signify that we are actually back and serious about contending for the title/CL next season.

Injuries and suspension(s) are popping up at the most inopportune time, but our fixture list isn't the most demanding either. Time to see what we're really made of.
 
The Europa League would. Gets us into the CL and puts another trophy on the mantle.

There’s also no guarantee bottling the cups increases our chances of finishing top 4. We could be riding a wave of momentum that crashes down once we get knocked out and craters our league position. That’s happened plenty of times.
 
We'll finish 3rd. Win the Europa. Lost the FA Cup final.
 
Not sure I could handle a cup final with City.

I think Brighton will probably beat us in the semi final they're a good side that we regularly struggle against and they'll have the whole week to prepare. Utd will be away in Seville on the Thursday night which is an 8pm KO so they'll be back into Manchester in the early hours of Friday so looking at maybe 1 training session on Saturday before they travel down for the game.
 
It’s already been a success of a season - I certainly didn’t expect rewards so soon under ETH but he has done wonders.

If we get another trophy and secure top four then it’s been a superb season.
 

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