After Manchester United beat Norwich City on Saturday and local rivals Manchester City could only draw with Arsenal a day later, the Reds now find themselves in a promising position to qualify for next season’s Champions’ League.
United’s unspectacular victory over Norwich at Carrow Road put them just one point behind rivals City having played the same amount of games.
However, after City drew with Arsenal on Sunday, United are now two points behind their local rivals with a game in hand, meaning they will leapfrog the Blues into fourth place if they win their final two matches.
Therefore, the Reds now have their destiny in their own hands. However, having played poorly at Carrow Road on Saturday and with a difficult match against West Ham coming up on Tuesday, United’s fate for this season is far from certain yet.
Regardless of how the match with West Ham finishes, though, the Reds will still have the chance to sneak into fourth spot when they face Bournemouth at Old Trafford in the last Premier League match of the season next Sunday.
However, the Reds are just two places above seventh-placed West Ham in the table and only four points ahead of them, and that alone suggests that match will be an incredibly tough one to win, and perhaps the most important one to succeed in en route to any possible Champions’ League participation next season.
Also, consider West Ham’s fantastic home record in the League this season and the fact that this will be their last ever match at their current Boleyn Ground home, then United will do extremely well to emerge with three points in East London.
Realistically, United need to beat the Hammers on Tuesday or they will hand the initiative back to Manchester City, although they also have a tricky away game on the horizon against Swansea City next Sunday.
The Reds could still qualify for the Champions’ League should they fail to beat West Ham, but would then be relying on City to drop the same amount of points when they face Swansea on Sunday. United’s far inferior goal difference means they simply must finish with more points than their rivals to finish fourth.
An unlikely third-placed finish is also still possible for Louis van Gaal’s men, but that would require both City and Arsenal to lose next weekend against Swansea and Aston Villa respectively, along with United winning both of their matches. It seems improbable that all of those events will take place and see the Reds finish third.
The Reds can still finish anywhere between third and eighth depending on their own and other side’s results, so in order to push as high up the table as possible and hopefully achieve a Champions’ League place for next season, United must begin by performing much better than they did against Norwich on Saturday.
