Tuesday’s Arsenal win against Sporting in the Champions League’s first quarter-final gave the Premier League a fifth CL ticket for next season. With that, Manchester United are seven points ahead of Chelsea in 6th place. With only seven games left in the season, the Red Devils are in a position to secure access to UEFA’s biggest cash prize box. In the dressing room at United, the focus is completely different. There is no talk of a Champions League ticket, but so much bigger.
United’s assistant coach Steve Holland talks about a mentality where the coaching staff has worked to shift the players’ focus away from the teams behind them, and instead prioritise individual match wins to close the gap with the leaders. Holland acknowledges the importance of a top-four finish, but he insists that the club’s mentality should always focus on trophies.
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-I think the language we should use as this club is to finish as close to the top as possible. I don’t know how possible it is, but it always has to be the challenge: to get as close to the top as possible. We’ve talked more with the players about winning our games, rather than thinking too much about what’s going on below. But given the context, finishing in the Champions League would be a good situation for us, but I think we should always look for more than that,” Holland told the club’s website.
Manchester City have a six-point lead (one fewer games played), while Arsenal have fifteen points over United.
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Either way, United fans love what they hear from Holland. This mentality should and must be United’s.
