A huge win yesterday and we're in a fantastic position.
We're a brilliant side, with an elite attitude, fortitude, conditioning and quality. We've a brilliant, level headed, astute, charismatic Manager. We're as complete a side as I've ever seen. Maybe not as spectacularly fluid and technically gifted as the brilliant City, Barcelona and Spanish teams of the last 15 years, but more complete I think. Just an elite unit of incredibly motivated, fit and talented players who love playing with and for each other.
Fucking love them.
That said, we've a huge distance to go, and are about to enter the trickiest part of the season. Between the 23rd November and 2nd January we play, in all likelihood 16 games. I'm not counting the Villa quarter final because as far as I see the first team squad will not be involved. It's now essentially an U23 fixture, and even some of them will probably be with us in Qatar. This is a 5 and a half week period. In that time the most rest we'll have that I can see is four days. To put it in perspective, we're playing the equivalent of 42% of a Premier League season in a month and half. Fortunately, we've got a big squad, and, on paper at least, some of our better Premier League fixtures. Brighton at home, Bournemouth away, Watford at home are games I expect us to be able to win while giving crucial rest to 3 or 4 players each time. The trickiest league fixtures are Leicester away on Boxing Day and probably Wolves and Sheffield United at home. Two teams you'd expect us to beat but will be relatively rested in comparison and face us at the end of this run 3 days apart. Hopefully we can get a result vs Napoli that makes the final CL group game a dead rubber too. It would be fantastic if we could rest all of our starters in that match.
If we can navigate that period and come out the other side (as World Champions please) with a largely fit squad and nothing more than a week or two knock at worst to anyone then we're in a great position. I typed out that a 4/5 point lead would be fantastic, and it definitely wouldn't be bad, but if that's all it is then we'll be far from being crowned Champions.
Fortunately, after a January where we play (ignoring Sheff U) Spurs away, United at home and Wolves away, plus an FA cup fixture we start February with a home game vs Southampton and an away trip to Norwich. Then comes the relief of a two week "winter" break. This should allow us a much, much needed opportunity to rest, recover, reflect and re-focus on the task at hand - ignoring the wider narratives and concentrate on winning each game we play.
Injuries and fatigue are arguably our biggest threat at the moment. Intelligent rotation and in-game management will be crucial over the next 2 months.