I said after our win over United that they don’t like playing after their European nights and I could see the benefit of that as far as we were concerned. Unfortunately though, after their defeat against Bayern Munich, that particular advantage isn’t one we’ll have now.
That’s a school of thought Carlo Ancelotti obviously agrees with, with the Chelsea manager stating “I think it is not good news for us. The Champions League is a very important competition and you have to use a lot of energy to play. But both teams can now focus on the Premier League. It is the only competition they can play. We have to pay attention because they’re very close to us and we need to run quickly to arrive in first place. I would have liked United to win against Bayern and to stay in the Champions League, for us it would have been more easy.”
And no wonder he thinks that really, given the way we’ve responded to our Champions League exit but is he right though? Will they bounce back in exactly the same way as we have? It certainly doesn’t help that a win against Blackburn would see them back at the top of the table this weekend because of our FA Cup game, and then it’ll be us under the pressure of having to at least match (if not better) every one of their results to claim top spot.
I don’t doubt that for all his blaming the ‘typical Germans’ for their Champions League exit, Fergie will have had a few choice words for his own players and won’t be accepting anything less than 110% in their battle for the only honour left to fight for this season, as for whether or not they’ll respond in quite the same way our players have remains to be seen.
Blue is the colour
