Manchester United

Correct,  but unfortunately none of them will get very far.

Yes, top three automatically going into the group stage and fourth place going into final qualifying round will happen regardless of United winning or not. 

Only seven teams from England can qualify for UEFA competitions, so if United don't win then there will be three teams in the Europa League. 

Angel Gomes, a 16 year old who has previously been mentioned in this thread who has basically broken every "youngest player of age group team" (he debuted under 18s when he was 14) for his whole life looks set to make a premier league debut this weekend.

If you want to feel old - he (and a West Brom player who also looks set to make a debut this Sunday) will be the first players to play in the Premier League born this millenium. 

And Nani is his cousin.

Europa League next season? Or missed out altogether? This could well determine whom you get to sign, rather than players clamering to sign.

Europa league next season is already locked in, with the 6th placing and the League cup. Also, United generally don't have an issue with players not signing for them due to European football commitments. Signed the four this season with Europa League football. 

Some typical United and Jose things from this morning

 - starting 11 was the youngest in United's premier league history

 - 9 academy graduates in the squad

 - Angel Gomes was the first premier league player born in the 21st Century

 - Jose holding an 11 second press conference. And to be fair, he and the press support asked if there were any questions, no one replied and they left. 

 - Jose will probably get fined for the press conference and for fielding such a weakened team, as its against premier league rules. 

All set for the final, hopefully Jose was able to find a balance between resting players and giving them enough game time to be ready for a final

That was a bit shark. The press hadn't even had time to leave the press box and he only hangs around for less than 10secs - if there is any fine I think it would be justified. 

Also:

Josh Harrop who debuted today is 1 week older than Martial

Season summary

Overall league position was sub-standard, especially given the pre-season expectations. The impact of the past three seasons have been underestimated. But the has been a clear improvement in the quality of football being played, as it was disjointed under Moyes and pedestrian under Van Gaal. 

However, there is one glaring statistic which, for me, has caused / restricted our league position. United were ranked 17th in goal conversion, with only 13% of shots being scored from. This meant United were ranked 12th in goals scored at home this season. and 6th equal away from home. This is clearly the problem, and it unfortunately is not one you can coach. This comes down to individual decisions. 

In contrast, United had the 2nd least goals conceded at home and 3rd away. So defensively, they were pretty good. But the defense focus, somewhat hindered the goal scoring, but the fact is that creating chances was not a problem, ranked 4th in the league.

Maybe, that's why United have done well in the cup competitions, because solid defending gets you further in these competitions. It will be a disaster if they lose the final this week. It was a calculated gamble going for it, and it needs to pay off. Big time. 

United were better to watch than previous years, as the nil all draws used to be games with 5 shots each. The signs are there for a positive future, but individuals need to step up, particularily in the final third. 

Style is still very pedestrian, and fudge me Mou is a cod

Manu v Ajax Final on TV in NZ? KO time?

Stand down I found it 

Sky Sport 3

6 am Thursday

25th May

KO is 6.45am - for those wanting a bit more sleep over match previews

3 trophies this season and Champions League.

To all the haters ----------- a big finger. ;)

Why didn't Mou celebrate that first goal? Such a COD.

Regardless congrats on the win!

Fudge all those pricks running around on Facebook last night "hoping United would lose".

Woooo!

I suppose it was a very Mourinho-esque season - met his objectives without the performances to match. 

United got the job done in terms of winning three (of the least prestigious) trophies plus qualifying for the Champions League and while the performances were an improvement on previous years, they were fairly reflected by the league position. 

I can only hope that winning trophies becomes a habit again, and for that to happen, the performances need to improve. 

Seems a pretty good summary in my opinion. Getting champions league was huge this morning. 

Sounds like you guys pretty much have Griezmann sorted which is massive. If the rumours are true, it seems it might have been hinging on champions league qualification. Another reason why this morning was pretty big. 

No fan of Man U but hard to begrudge a victory for a Manchester team after the last few days. Hopefully some people can find some escape and comfort in football. 

People bag sport for being disconnected from the "real world" but that's the power of it, the joy of it, the appeal of it. For 90 minutes people can forget all the bullshark politics and hate and fear and horror. 

Kia kaha Manchester. Enjoy your win.

Agreed Conan, I was pretty "meh" about this game. To me it was a Champions League qualifier at best. But after the events in Manchester I got a bit more "involved".

Here is a class tweet form City after the win this morning:

Fudgeing pumped if Griezmann is on his way. Don't usually get overly excited about big names but I've developed a slight man crush on the man and even been watching Atletico games since the start of the year!

I think you've got to give credit to Mourinho. He identified early that with the squad we had, pushing for a top 4 finish and winning the Europa League just wasn't plausible given the depth of our squad and the way it was being decimated with injuries.

He undoubtedly would have had it in the back of his mind that winning Europa gave us straight qualification to the CL Group stages, rather than having to go through qualifying games.

I reflect on this season and think that the main thing he has tried to do is steady the ship. After the last two tumultuous seasons, the club was desperate for someone to come in and stamp some authority on the team and start working them back in a winning direction. I dare say with three trophies ( though people argue they're crap trophies, they always say that until they have them ) that he's achieved just that.

Today I thought tactically we were spot on - some might look it and see it as boring, but Jose doesn't risk playing dangerous football in finals. We sat deep so they couldn't let them get behind us with pace and just let them keep the ball and knock it around ineffectively. Romero was barely troubled the whole game. I couldn't understand Ajaxs reluctance to shoot the ball.

This semi-pains me..... but MoM was Fellaini.

There is just one other point I want to make - in regards to the historical views about the Europa League.

Some are bringing up how when Liverpool / Chelsea made the finals, the common opinion was that this competition was pointless and even detrimental to play in. It is likely that United fans joined in with this. This was probably correct at the time.

This is clearly not the case now, because if you win this competition, you are in the Champions League. That instantly brings meaning to the competition and, like United did this season, even means you can focus on this above other competitions. 

So while I acknowledge that it is still the second tier competition, it is far more meaningful than previous years. 

Interesting that a "successful" and "treble-winning" season boils down to the ability of a squad signed for £628M, being paid £221M a year, and being managed by a bloke paid £13.8M a year, to come out on top in a friendly against Leicester, and in 2nd level cup ties against the likes of Northampton Town, Manchester City reserves, West Ham, Hull City, Southampton (with help from the officials), St Etienne (8th in France), Rostov (6th in Russia), Anderlecht (1st in Belgium), Celta Vigo (13th in La Liga), and Ajax Amsterdam average age 22

This is the Charlie Sheen school of "Winning" for sure !

Get over it, a trophy is a trophy. Nor sure that average age has much to do with it. Most of the Ajax players are internationals from a young age.

A lot of 'other 'supporters would like their club to be as successful.

It is called envy.  :)

I was reluctant to respond, as you have clearly picked particular facts that suit the agenda of the post, but I couldn't let comments like this be unresponded to.

No one here has said it was a 'successful' season. No one has said that the league cup and charity shield are prestigious, or can be classed into a treble. Yes, they should have won these competitions. And they did. Others didn't win trophies they were supposed to. And no one is hiding the fact that the league position was not good enough. 

The other side to your facts are: 

• 4 managers in 5 seasons have had transfer power for these players - there is no consistency of transfers in the team. The whole style of play has also changed frequently during that time. So the value of the players is less relevant than who the players are. 
• Manchester United (and most English clubs) will always have to pay more for their players - they have more revenue to spend and selling teams know this. This pushes the value of squads up.  
• Also, the value of the squad, wages and transfers are all in relation to the amount of revenue the club has. Higuain cost Juventus 28% of their total income. Pogba cost 18% of United's (about the same % as what Arsenal paid for Ozil). You can recite the total cost of players and teams, but Manchester United are huge and money is not an issue (apart from their interest payments)

Would you say that Spurs' season was unsuccessful, because they didn't win any trophies? Will Arsenal's season be a success if they win the FA cup? Everything needs to be put into perspective, and with everything taken into account, as I said yesterday, United met their targets in terms of trophies and CL. They didn't score enough goals and they weren't consistent enough. But lets just hope there is a degree of continuity in the future and Mourinho can stick around to continue the winning ways 

Even as a gunners fan, I think Man Utd did very well to win Europa when they reaised they wouldn't make the top 4. That is called prioritisation, and it's good management to pull it off.

I'm not going to get into the ' Community Shield as meaningless, ' but I bet Utd, Liverpool and Arsenal would certainly not agree.

If that is the case they should flag it, but then which other trophy would people want scrapped? 

English  sides play far too many games anyway.

Community Shield is an opportunity to play against usually one of the top teams at a packed Wembley and climb the Wembley steps to lift a bit of silverware. None of that can be a bad thing for anyone to experience and get used to.

As for the Europa, I certainly hope Arsenal take it as seriously next season as it's a trophy we should really be one of the favourites for, and it's an opportunity to win the European trophy. Because of the seedings and own country exclusion in the CL we end up playing the same teams every season so I'm actually looking forward to playing some different teams we haven't played before.

Don't kid yourselves, the community shield is meaningless and playing our first team in the league cup is evident to how far we've fallen.

Europa is a champions league qualification off the back of an entertaining competition and a good victory for the side. Realistically any team in the premier league would've taken a Europa win this year if it was offered to them.

Would have taken it last year, bloody Sevilla!

If they didn't already, I think all English sides will be taking the EL pretty seriously from here.

We can probably thank those Spaniards for doing so previously which helped lead to the winner getting a CL spot.

Uniteds season of "failure" is most teams most successful ever.

We call it standards.

So I am a troll, because I believe a team that has been widely reported as the most expensive side ever assembled coming 6th is not an amazing achievement? The same team that was dominated by Celta Vigo, who came 14th in La Liga is not the GOAT. https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1184151/Live/Eur... The same team that drew with the Giants of football Anderlecht https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1179905/Live/Eur...

I find it amazing seeing children proclaim Maureen and Man U a great success, when they objectively failed.  

Nobody on here have made those comments.

By the way, I think you will find that City have spent more. Anyway, if we have the money-------- so what. Get a life.

You should also check what the word 'bigot' actually means. I think you meant bias. I knew what you were trying to say. :)