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Alan Hansen's Point of View

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  • Alan Hansen's Point of View

    From here on in, every Chelsea and Manchester United game will be like a cup final.
    Let the mind games begin...


    With both teams in the FA Cup final, the Champions League semi-finals and going for the Premiership title, it is set to be a dramatic end to the season.
    Finally we have got an exciting end to the league and after five or 10 years of it being wrapped up early, this one is going right down to the wire.
    Sure, you would rather be United than Chelsea because you are three points ahead and with a better goal difference.
    They are in pole position but then Chelsea have got the more experienced players as far as winning the Premiership is concerned having got the last two.
    Experience is going to count for an awful lot over the course of the next month or so.
    Nowhere will it be more important than for the two managers involved: Sir Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho.
    Much of what happens will depend on them, on what they do and do not say in the dressing-room, how they motivate their team and how they stop the players from getting too tired.
    I am sure the mind games are about to start - if they have not already - but this time more than ever it is so important that they do not say the wrong thing.
    There are some people in the dressing room who will embrace this situation and love it, others who will be scared.

    I don't think either Chelsea or United will win all of the three trophies remaining




    You must have the ability to work out the characters in your team and then get the best out of them. They have to get that right.
    Chelsea have been unbelievable this season. They have not got the fluency of Arsenal and they cannot counter-attack like United, but they just do not go away, they keep plugging away until they succeed.
    It is like Julius Caesar: "I came, I saw, I conquered." Chelsea just sort of weigh you up and then beat you.
    The run they have had has been remarkable, when you think they have been fighting on four different fronts, but they are probably getting by on adrenaline now because every game is so massively important.
    Against Blackburn on Sunday, Chelsea had the first FA Cup final at the new Wembley Stadium as their pot of gold at the end of the rainbow - and that got them through.
    I have said before that Chelsea have changed the face of English football forever and they have provided everyone in the game with a different challenge, not least of all Sir Alex Ferguson.
    If you look at the 1980s and 1990s, you could win the title with not-so-great teams but now you know if you are to beat Chelsea you must have a great team and be having a great season.
    If United win the Premiership, they will have done just that. They are doing remarkably well but Chelsea do not back off and they will both be there at the death.
    I do not think one of them will win all three trophies they are going for. It has happened before and it will happen again but possibly it is easier when the league is wrapped up early, like it was for Man Utd in 1999.
    If you are playing Saturday, Wednesday, Saturday and every game is vitally important, it makes it extremely difficult for all concerned. But it is very exciting because we are going to have a great FA Cup final at the brand new Wembley and a really close title run-in as well.
    "Jamaica's future reflects its past, having attained only one per cent annual growth over 30 years whilst neighbours have grown at five per cent." (Article)
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