Last month, I commented on how our fixtures may play a big part in what we win this season, considering we have no played all of the top teams away from home, and will have taken on all of the top half of the table on away from home by the halfway point of the season.
Ths is then coupled with the fact all of our matches following European games fall away from home, which sees us at a disadvantage where Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal are concerned, who all have at least one match at home following an away trip in the Champions League.
Ferguson has claimed we are handicapped because of this today, but is he right?
“They say the league’s not handicapped but it is handicapped,” said Ferguson. “Every game after a European tie is away from home. We’ve got the top 10 teams from last year’s league all away from home in the first half of the season. So you can see it’s been a big challenge to us. But hopefully, if we can get in among the top ones come the turn of the year, we’ll have a big chance next year.”
It is undeniable that the Champions League fixtures could have been kinder to us, but I’d personally rather us get the more difficult games out of the way first. We’re typically stronger in the second half of the season anyway, so who knows how many games we might win from January onwards, considering Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea all have to come to Old Trafford, as well as Everton, Aston Villa, Blackburn, Portsmouth and City.
The league table might not paint United in a favourable light come December, but hopefully once the fixtures have started to even out, we will be able to claw ourselves back up the table.
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We just need to get on a good run the Villa game and City and Spurs away are massive.
i dont like using excuses but if we look at our last few fixtures and compare it with the other top 4 i think we have had the harder ones, but i agree with you in the business end of the season i would rather have these teams come to OT rather then having to go there.
last season we got 52 points out of a possible 57 at OT which we have to maintain this season if we want to be champions
I would rather not be chasing points, hard fixtures early or not…
the second half of the season we will have to play 2 extra games but on the other hand they’ll be games in hand
every tean from the top half of the table have to play united at home
so i think if united hit christmas with at most 8 points off the top its not that bad really
If we can keep the gap as close as possible then surely the second half of the season should be better.
felt it when the fixtures were announced in the summer, but like scholsey said you have to play these games at some stage, it’s just a pity we’ve played the top 3 away from home before we’ve found our rhythm. At least we can find our rhythm after christmas and hopefully go unbeaten or slip up just the once.
Its a good thing to get the tough games out the way, but its a bad thing to only get 1 point from the possible 9…
If we win every home game from here on in, we’ll still be very close. We definitely have to beat Liverpool and Chelsea though.
Chelsea only have 1 from 6 I suppose.
Is there anyone good with statistics out there ? I would really like to know what the chances are that Manchester United would be stuck with such fixtures ? I mean really, what are the odds compared to the other top teams? 1/10, 1/20, 1/100, 1/1000 ? Any math professors our there ?
You have to play the games we’ve played at some point, yes it’s been a tough run but the hard ones are out of the way, we just need to start picking up points and not dominating but coming away with nothing or scraping a draw.
He’s right and i agree with him, but i kinda feel its was badly timed, the ABU brigade as usual will see this as whinging and Fergie making excuses
Sir Alex is just releaving the pressure of our lads. Hopefully we’ll start coming good.
It’s undeniable that fixtures is one factor of inconsistency in our performance but Sir Alex shouldn’t making such fuss. It’s not like this is the 1st time we’ve such tight fixtures and as a very experienced manager, he should have know it better than anyone. What I think the best for us right now is try to use last season formation and strategy. It’s proven tactics because we’ve won so damn much. Sir Alex shouldn’t be hesitant to drop under-performance player like Rooney and Gary and used Tevez and Brown/Rafael instead.
glory_911
he didnt make a fuss, he just simply stated some obvious facts
as usual it gets taken out of context as him complaining, when its fairly easy to see he isnt
The season is 38 games long, and we’ll play every team home and away. And in the end, the best team wins.
sir alex should really start to rotate his strikers. not just play berbatov every single game. and once we get our midfield back, them too.