We haven’t taken 3 points at Old Trafford since September 2006.
Plus it would annoy Mourinho losing his final game against Wenger.
We haven’t taken 3 points at Old Trafford since September 2006.
Plus it would annoy Mourinho losing his final game against Wenger.
In the context of could we finish 6th or 7th: Meh.
In the context of could we finish 1st or 2nd:
It's a pretty obvious difference.
The fact that the question is whether we finish 6th or 7th is, of course, pretty damning.
But we are where we are and in the context of where we are: finishing outside the European places BUT in the midst of a semi-final in the EL with, Kos brainfart or not, we are still in, the priority is clear.
If you want to be in there trying to finish 1st rather than 2nd you must first have a winning mentality. We don't. That's why we are competing for 6th or 7th.
At some point that has to change or we won't be competing for 1st again.
It's a football match. It's a competitive sport. We are supposedly a top team. We have highly paid, supposedly professional players and a manager that gets paid a fortune to do what? Compete? Or chuck it because there's something else we'd rather be doing?
What does a hammering at OT give us in terms of momentum, belief, pride? Or aren't those things worth the risk of losing a player to injury or making the little lambs tired?
Yeah, let's chuck it and then drag our feet-up, refreshed arses over to Spain. Because all the resting did us a lot of good last night, didn't it? I'd much rather have gone into that game with a team that has battled together all season through thick and thin and clawed for every point - blood, guts, injuries, suspensions and all the rest that is part and parcel of the game.
Instead we have part-timers turning up for the glamour events in the hope of remembering what they do for a living.
It's a cowardly, losing way to go about things. It's What Wenger has bred into the club.
Für eure Sicherheit
Resting players in between the two legs of a two leg tie is what every manager would do.
I don't want us to "chuck" it, and I don't want us to get hammered.
But the Utd game is not a "must win" game like it would have been back in the day when we were chasing titles.
I'll be disappointed if Wenger puts out "the kids" and we get a walloping, if it rests a few key players or puts them on the bench then fine, I think pretty much any manager would do that in these circumstances.
Alexis Sanchez.
The only motivation needed to win this. You know he will relish putting us to the sword.