Champions League Dream Fading But Still In Sight.
Has the loss
at the Hawthorns Stadium damaged our hopes of making the Champions League next
season even further? Manchester United walked into the Hawthorns this past
Sunday with the boost of confidence they got from back to back victories over
Midtjylland in the Europa League, Shrewsbury FC
in the FA Cup, Arsenal and Watford in the Premier League.
With all this victory and the recent news
of most of the teams recent injured players returning to fitness the club, the
fans were all energised with the upcoming fixture against West Bromwich Albion
knowing that the club has successfully taken all three points away from our
trip to the Hawthorns. But know Manchester United Fan can say that he or she
saw what happened within the first twenty minutes coming.
West Brom started the match by dominating
possession of the ball and attacking Manchester United goal front with every
chance they got and while Manchester United tried to make play when the team
had ball possession it was clear that the club was not playing with the same
level of confidence and intensity as the club played with in the previous two
matches against Arsenal and Midtjylland.
The big question that might still be be
floating on the minds of most Manchester United fans is the obvious one, What
was Juan Mata thinking? The spanish
midfield maestro known around Old Trafford for creating goals for himself and
for his team mates turned from a praiseworthy player to a disappointing player
in the space of twenty minutes during the game. Mata was booked twice and sent
off in the first half for two reckless tackles twenty minutes into the game. I
can understand the first tackle because it looked like a tackle that occurred as
a result of frustration from the team's lack of ball possession but to make a a
second bookable offence minutes after being is just completely unprofessional
and costly to the team. I guess the next
step Old Trafford fan has to take is to move past the mistake from the spaniard
and hope that the team can get the win in our next game with so many missing
players in the squad.
Although the
team was a man down and a little under pressure because of the victories on
Saturday from teams ahead of Manchester United, the red devils decided to try
and defend for most of the second half with Memphis Depay and Anthony Martial
left up front alone to create few goal scoring chances, if any, for the
team. However, it was Solomon Rondon
that would have the last word for West Bromwich Albion by scoring the only
decisive goal after being left open in the box by Manchester United defenders.
How much will the loss affect the teams Champions League dream? We will have to
wait till the end of the season to see but one thing is for sure, if the club
wants to make it to the Champions League next season, Manchester United can not
place all hopes on winning the Europa League and start seeing fourth place
finish as a possibility to cash on before it’s too late.
