The mancs draw with Middlesboring earlier in the week has grown Liverpool?s slim chance of gaining second spot into a distinct possibility. The odds are still in the mancs favour but should they fail to beat Charlton in their final game on Sunday and Liverpool win at Pompey, then it is the Reds who will finish runners-up.
Normally you would have to fancy the mancs to beat Charlton at The Theatre of Prawns and this is still the case, but they have been stuttering a bit lately and they will of course be without Rooney. There is also the fact that this will be Alan Curbishley?s final game in charge at Charlton, so his players won?t be lacking in motivation and will be wanting to give him a good send-off.
Despite this, I would still expect Rafa to shuffle his pack once again at Pompey and rest a few players ahead of the Cup Final. We can?t control events in the other game so I would think he?ll will of course out a side strong enough to win the game but hold back some of his strength on the bench, to call upon should things start to go our way. Reading between the lines of his most recent interview, I think its pretty clear that this is the approach he will take.
He said: ‘We know it’s still going to be difficult, but at least now we no longer have to think about the goal difference.
‘At one point it looked like we would not only have to win, but also score a lot of goals to catch Manchester United even if they lost. That would have been very difficult.
‘Now it’s straightforward now. As long as we concentrate on winning the game, that’s all we can do. We don’t need to think of goals we’ll need.
‘The advantage is still with them, but we have a chance. We can go into the game feeling no pressure.
‘If we win, we already know there are some good records to achieve. We have already played a good season and can be happy with what we’ve done so far.’
Second spot is important because it means we can avoid the potential banana-skin of a CL qualifying tie and of course there is also some extra prize money involved. Some people would go further and say that finishing second will prove that we are chelski?s main rivals but I don?t agree with this, I think it?s more a case of just re-affirming what we and a lot of other supporters, already know.
Regardless of the outcome at the weekend, I don?t think there can be any doubt that the game has long since moved on from the old days of rivalry between the mancs and the Gooners. These days it?s the intense rivalry between Liverpool and chelski that whets the appetite and our ongoing encounters are the most anticipated in the English football calender. We saw last week how easily chelski brushed aside the mancs with a 3-0 victory and the truth is that over the last two seasons neither the mancs nor the Gooners have caused chelski any problems whatsoever but when it comes to Liverpool its been a different story.
In the Premiership they have clearly had the upper hand on us. Last season we could point to some dodgy refereeing decisions that went their way but these season, although we had incidents such as Essiens assault on Hamann and Robben De Niro performing the second act from Richard the Third to get Reina sent off, these incidents didn?t affect the outcome of the games and we?ve just got to accept we were beaten.
However, in other competitions its been a much different story. In the League Cup final last season they got a huge slice of luck when an unlikely OG from Gerrard with less then 10 minutes to go forced the game into extra time and they eventually won 3-2. In the CL we have been the better side. Despite Jose?s constant whining about whether the ball crossed the line in last season semi, the fact is we won and went on to win the competition. In this seasons competition we got the better of them again. Although both games between the sides were drawn, we did better against the other sides and topped the group which left them in second place and forced them into their ill-fated encounter with Barca.
Most recently we have of course dumped them out of the FA Cup when they had ambitions of doing The Double. So my point is that when you look at the game as a whole, its quite clear that we are by far their biggest rivals despite what the table may say.
Still, it would be nice to finish second but should things not pan out for us I still think we can be very proud of the huge progress the side has made this year. We currently sit firmly in 3rd spot, 14 points ahead of Spurs in 4th spot and with a possibility of gaining second spot in our final game, which is a long way from the struggles of 4th and 5th place finishes in recent seasons. Of the teams who finished ahead of us last season, we are 12pts behind chelski who finished 37pts ahead of us last time, we are 15 pts ahead of Arsenal who finished 25pts ahead of us last time, we are 1pt behind the mancs who finished 19 pts ahead of us last time and we are 30pts ahead of the blueshite who finished 3pts ahead of us last time.
That?s huge progress by any mans reckoning and to think we still have a Cup Final to come. It really feels oh so good to be a Red!
Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.
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