By Susan
Man United hope of finishing in the top four in the Premier League is hanging by a thread. We could have had a better chance but for home records this season which are far from being impressive.
We have league matches against against our top six rivals; Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City and Tottenham, and without being bias, winning all those matches could be termed a pipe dream.
But we can take solace from the fact that we are still in the race to win the Europa League, which is obviously our more realistic chance of securing qualification for the Champions League next season.
A major reason why more concentration should be channeled to that course. The results have not been forthcoming in the League but we have been able to grind out results in the Europa League, even though we have not been totally impressive in the competition.
And we can only hope that continues as we face Belgian club Anderlecht – our first meeting in 17 years- in the first leg of the quarter-final on Thursday in Brussels, Belgium.
Though we are favourites to win the match, complacency should not be encouraged. Anderlecht are no underdogs. They have got players like Youri Tielemans, Kara and Lukasz Teodorczyk who could cause us some troubles but with the right approach a win could be on the card for us.
Wayne Rooney will miss the match after being left out of the squad that traveled to Belgium, not really because of injury as the United all-time scorer trained with the team this morning, while Antonio Valencia and David De Gea are available for selection after the pair missed the Sunderland win.
Apart from Phil Jones, Chris Smalling and Juan Mata, Jose Mourinho has enough players at his disposal. Sergio Romero is expected to continue between the sticks for us.
The Argentine goalie has been brilliant in that aspect for us as he has kept six clean sheets in 7 outings in this competition as well as keeping a clean sheet against Sunderland on Sunday. There are enough positives to take from that.
A good result would ease the pressure on us ahead of the return leg next week.
