I’m sure every Wolves fan knows the bottom of the Premier League like the back of their hand. Six teams are within three points of the dreaded drop, heading towards one of the most exciting final days in a number of years.
There is one match that worries me though; Blackburn v Manchester United. Every part of my body is telling me that Blackburn are just two points clear of us, surely I want them to lose. Now I have no fondness for Chelsea, and at this stage I couldn’t care less who wins the title, but I want Blackburn to win.
There are two reasons for this:
1) A Blackburn win puts them on 42 points and given their superior goal difference, they are virtually safe.
2) A Manchester United loss means that they have to take the game against Blackpool seriously as anything less than a point would surely see Chelsea snatch the title.
Why would Blackburn being safe be good for us? Well, obviously we play them on the last game of the season. I get the feeling that IF they came to Molineux needing just a point to stay up, their defence is good enough to shut us out and get it.
And while a point may be good enough for them, it may not be enough for us. If we go into the last game needing a win, which I suspect we will, I’d far rather play a team who are already safe, whose players are thinking more about their spot on the beach than they are a relegation battle.
The second point; while I think about what Manchester United’s second string did against Schalke 04, and hope that they can do the same against Blackpool, I also think back the last day of 2006/07. Manchester United, having already sewn up the title played a West Ham side needing a win to stay in the Premier League. While Manchester United played a reasonably strong team that day, they had one eye on the Cup Final the week later and lost 1-0. West Ham stayed up.
We can’t afford for United to take their eye of the ball in this match. I’m hoping that they will want to celebrate lifting the Premier League trophy with a win in front of their fans, and continue their near perfect home record, but given the way Blackpool play, they will put those reserve team players under a lot of pressure, more so than Schalke did in a tie that was effectively dead.
As much as it pains me to say it, if on Sunday we cannot catch Blackburn, part of me will be reasonably happy.
You can follow Tom Bason on Twitter (@toomb86)
Tom,
I agree wholeheartidly with your comments those are my exact fears as well, I expect Blackpool to win both their remaining games. Bolton are on a terrible run, and yes United will get points against Blackburn and play their youth team sod the celebrations fergie wants the Champions League trophy this season.
As you then say we would have to beat Blackburn to say up, only if Birmingham get a point in their two games. Its possible if we draw our last 2 games and Birmingham lose by an aggregate of more than 3 goals we would stay up on goals scored.
So we need points tomorrow and ideally 3 against a Sunderland team shorn of 11 first team players.
Have faith we can do it, we need another performance like last week and we should be OK.
3 points against Sunderland means that we’re safe with only one or zero points against Blackburn, if the other teams below us lose or draw. And the best part is that it’s very realistic. As Amber Wolf stated, it’s our first team against their reserves.
Wholly disagree mate I’m sorry. At this stage we can’t afford the luxury of anyone being safe. Blackburn losing tomorrow is another team we can overtake, we don’t want to rely on the sequence of events you’re outlining.
Have you considered adding some social bookmark buttons to your site? At least include one for Digg so we can ping them up!