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Today’s tell-all intends to discover if Manchester’s finest are planning trips to Madrid outside of regular competition time!

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The days of Manchester United scoring four goals every time they step onto a football pitch already seem to be long departed and the reason, despite United fans blaming everything from the weather to José Mourinho to Marouane Fellaini being crocked, is because Paul Pogba went and injured himself.

It is no coincidence, (actually, it is), that United stopped scoring multiple goals regularly as soon as Pogba was out of the team. He is not only the strength and power of the midfield but also the creative player who can make a telling pass. He was also contributing to the scoring charts so, all in all, he is a bigger miss than most people thought would be the case. Read the rest of this entry »

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Tuesday night turned out to be a night of mixed fortunes for the English clubs in the Champion’s League, as Manchester United beat Benfica to virtually assure their qualification and Chelsea were soundly beaten by Roma in a dreadful performance.

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José Mourinho resisted any temptation to play a weakened team even with Sunday’s game against Chelsea looming large in the rear-view mirror.

The idea was to ensure that qualification was guaranteed before the next game in the competition when, thanks to the win against Benfica, he will be able to rest players. Read the rest of this entry »

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Five of the big six return to Champion’s League action this week with all of them in a good position to qualify.

The only ones not in a good position to progress to the next phase of this season’s competition are Arsenal, mainly because they are not in it.

They are, however, in a good spot in the Europa League, a competition in which they find themselves competing for the first time in 137 years. Read the rest of this entry »

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Back in 2003, when stubborn old man was quite a good manager, his team managed to go through an entire season without losing a single game in the Premier League.

Back in the 1880’s, when stubborn old man was just a small garçon in Strasbourg, Preston North End managed to go through an entire season without losing a single game in both the league and the cup. In doing so they were, and still are, the only one of the seven double winners to achieve the task without losing a game. They also won the cup without conceding a goal.

There is a slight chance that the Arsenal achievement could be matched by Manchester City this season. There is a much slighter chance that the Preston achievement could be matched but City’s defence probably isn’t good enough for that one. Read the rest of this entry »

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The early kick-off this week saw the meeting of Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur at Old Trafford.

Much had been made of the fact that Harry Kane would miss the game through injury but very little had been said about United being without Pogba, Fellaini, Rojo and Carrick which, collectively, is surely a bigger miss than just one player!

The game itself was a forgettable affair with United in particular guilty of their usual ineptness in possession and displaying their regular propensity for giving the ball back to the opposition far too easily. Read the rest of this entry »

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It’s a bit of a rhetorical question as it is a situation unlikely to happen to ALL of them, and certainly not at the same time, but we like to speculate and it is quite interesting to debate which one would suffer the most.

The obvious caveat here is that it depends upon the games the player in question is likely to miss. Will they be title deciders against big clubs or just end of the season run-outs with little or no meaning?

So we have assumed that, when they lose the player in question, all six have a run of games identical in importance to each other. See if you agree with our choices. Read the rest of this entry »

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The stand-out game of this weekend’s Premier League fixtures is undoubtedly the one at Old Trafford between Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur.

Mauricio Pochettino will be hoping that his team can bounce back, a little like West Ham did in the second half of their mid-week game, by taking something positive from Manchester.

He will also want to prove that Tottenham are not the “Harry Kane” team, as Pep Guardiola described them. Although meant as a compliment to Kane, it was wrongly  taken as a slight against the team as a whole yet Spurs did little to prove that they can win without Kane, by losing without Kane, at home, to West Ham. Read the rest of this entry »

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What are we talking about, you may well ask? Why, the Carabao Cup, of course.

Fresh from progressing into the next round, José Mourinho has decided, once again, that this is a competition to be taken seriously.

His shoulders are occasionally adorned by a white angel or a red devil, depending upon his mood. This time the angel, (responsible for the “serial winner” side of his personality), got there before the devil, (responsible for the “serial moaner” side of his personality). Read the rest of this entry »

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Tonight saw the return of the Coca-Cola/Rumbelows/Littlewoods/Carling/Milk/Capital One/Worthington/EFL/Carabao Cup and Manchester’s United and City both managed to get through potentially tricky ties. This now means that, into their already overcrowded and much-complained-about calendar, they need to fit at least one more game.

The question which is obviously on everyboy’s lips is; why don’t they just throw the game if it isn’t that important?

It’s a competition used to play fringe players anyway, so they would just go back to where they came from, on the fringe. Read the rest of this entry »

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José Mourinho will take his Manchester United team down to Swansea in an attempt to qualify for the next round of the Carabao Cup.

It isn’t a competition which is among his two top priorities but, suddenly, this game has become quite important, to Mourinho, the players and the fans.

This is because had United attacked Liverpool, at Anfield, just over a week ago, it is entirely possible they would have left with all three points. Read the rest of this entry »