And the best position to be in goes to Liverpool........

[DannyMan2006]

Obvioulsy it would be nice to be top and not behind on goal difference. But..........

Of all the also rans in the prem we have played all of them away in the league. Villa, City, Everton, Spurs. They are the 4 teams who regularly prove a tough fixture for the rest, not to mention Bolton away and Sunderland away. An away fixture at Stanford Bridge out the way is also a bonus. That leaves away to the Emirates and Old Trafford where we would maybe not expect to win.

The rest of our challengers have yet to play these sort of difficult away days. The majority of the above teams don't tend to park the bus either so no really difficult fixtures at home in that respect. Whilst the average teams we have played at home will normally have a go when we are on our travels.

All of the above has been done without some key players finding form. So I expect a good second half of the season. Which is normally our better anyway.

[Craig_H]

To be fair, i think the mancs away games so far have been the hardest.

Us, Chelsea, Arsenal, Villa, Everton, Portsmouth and Blackburn are ALL hard games, only Blackburn (out of that lot) have looked worse than you'd expect.

I agree we've obviously had some hard ones too - Chelsea, City, Spurs, Everton, Villa etc all tough. United's have been a bit harder but the key difference (and the good thing for us) is that we've actually come out of our lot of away games with a very good return of points.

That's one positive. Everyone's talking about how United have already got the hardest away games out of the way - which is true. But they've only picked up a small tally of points from those games, so getting them out of the way is meaningless, if you've got a poor return of points.

[Matt]

We're still in a decent position but 3 points against West Ham is now a must ahead of the Blackburn game. Out of the weekend games it'll be us who will be most disappointed not to get a result.

It was this time last year that things started going wrong so we need a really strong December.

[Craig_H]

That's the thing with silly home points being dropped - they put much more pressure on us to win harder away games. Beating Man Utd and Chelsea kinda balanced out the Stoke game. Now we need to beat West Ham AND Blackburn to balance out the fulham draw. The need to beat Hull at home after we play Blackburn, goes without saying.

[Matt]

I think we'll get the 3 points at Ewood even though it's a bit of a dodgy one. After that we've got Hull and then Arsenal away. Hopefully Arsenal won't do a Spurs and sort themselves out just in time to play us.

[BigChief]

With Alonso now rested, Gerrard hopefully coming back and Torres getting yet another match under his belt, I can't see why we can't bring back the intensity to beat West Ham and Blackburn. I would be disappointed to drop points in those games regardless of the Fulham game.

Point of note, I had the Fulham home game as a draw weeks ago as I knew it followed the midweek international.

[Craig_H]

You seem to conclude that any game which follows an international, is one which we should be happy to not win.

[Fivex]

You seem to conclude that any game which follows an international, is one which we should be happy to not win.

That's not what he said buddy

And what he actually said was based on the obvious trend with the big 4.

[The_weatherman]

We're still in a decent position but 3 points against West Ham is now a must ahead of the Blackburn game. Out of the weekend games it'll be us who will be most disappointed not to get a result.

It was this time last year that things started going wrong so we need a really strong December.

Next weekend it's Chelsea - Arsenal right? And ManU - Mancity? Love it when we are in the mix

Hopefully we can manage to beat West Ham (I'm willing to rest players against Marseille if necessary) as I have a feeling Arsenal will bounce back against Chelsea. United will win City though.

[Craig_H]

That's not what he said buddy

And what he actually said was based on the obvious trend with the big 4.

I wouldnt call one weekend a 'trend'.

And i very much doubt there's any kind of consistent pattern with the other contenders failing to beat nobodies at home following an international game.

[Woobus]

I wouldnt call one weekend a 'trend'.

And i very much doubt there's any kind of consistent pattern with the other contenders failing to beat nobodies at home following an international game.

I know Fergi, Wenger, Rafa and Maureen all complained about premiership football after internationals. Cant be easy to prepare for a match when you only have a day or so with your full squad.

[Skillz]

I wouldnt call one weekend a 'trend'.

And i very much doubt there's any kind of consistent pattern with the other contenders failing to beat nobodies at home following an international game.

So what do you suggest we do?

[Craig_H]

I know Fergi, Wenger, Rafa and Maureen all complained about premiership football after internationals. Cant be easy to prepare for a match when you only have a day or so with your full squad.

The internationals are a real pain and they dont help at all. I think we all agree on that one mate.

Home against Fulham after an international is one of the easier games you could have though. I dont even know what the argument is about anymore

I just think it was expected by the whole world that we'd win and therefore the best United could have expected was that we'd still be 8 points ahead of them and that's what's happened, which is a shame.

I wonder if people would see it differently if United had drawn at Villa in a lunchtime kickoff and we'd then gone on to drop two points at home to Fulham. Maybe it wouldnt make a difference to how people feel, i guess we'll never know.

So what do you suggest we do?

I suggest we win our remaining 24 games

But no, there's obviously nothing we can 'do', i just dont think there's anything wrong in acknowledging that, given the respective opposition facing us, United and Chelsea this weekend, the outcome is better for United than it is for us.

[Woobus]

I just think it was expected by the whole world that we'd win and therefore the best United could have expected was that we'd still be 8 points ahead of them and that's what's happened, which is a shame.
.

Ohh I agree with you that our result was shocking and overall United would be slightly happier with the result they got. I really dont see why we should be worried about United if we want to win the league.
I think any team that can finish above Chelsea will win the league and we should only look up the table and not below us.

[Craig_H]

The only thing about United is the option to open up a bigger and bigger gap on them, which really puts them under the cosh and gives us some kind of margin for error on them.

Also, if we didnt win it, i'd really like to come 2nd. It'd be a big psychological boost to rip that 'two horse race' bull**** to pieces and it'd be nice not to have to qualify for the CL.