I thought I best take the opportunity to clarify something prior to this post.  I have hinted in the past, but I have avoided saying it explicitly for fear of alienating people and/or suffering a backlash.

I am a diehard Man United supporter.

I don’t attend very many games these days.  I don’t care about watching games in a pub with “atmosphere”.  To be totally honest, I don’t even really enjoy watching Man United with other people.  In an ideal world, I would watch the games in a private gym, in solitary confinement.

Without commentary, only crowd noise.

I like to get in the zone.  And I cannot handle some meathead shouting over my shoulder that “Fergie has lost it” and “Fletcher is crap” when we go a goal down!

I tend to look at things a bit differently from a lot of football fans.

Three days on from our 3rd round exit from the FA Cup at the hands of our old foes (and more importantly , League 1 residing) Leeds I am still being mocked/repeatedly asked “Have you recovered from the shock of Sunday?” and “You must be so angry about losing to Leeds”.

I nod and play along with the banter to keep the peace.  But, honestly, I wasn’t even stressed at 2:30pm when Michael Owen missed his kick in front of the Stretford End.  I certainly wasn’t angry at the final whistle.  And I haven’t really thought about the game since.

For me, any Man United fan who is really angry about Sunday must be a) out of sync with the aims (and needs) of Man United football club, b) suffering from obscenely high blood pressure and/or c) is completely irrational.

Going into this season, I am going to take a stab at what the main priorities of MUFC were, on a results only basis.

For me they would be something like:

Objective	Importance
a) Win the Premier League	25%
b) Failing a), finish second	15%
c) Failing a) & b) make top 4	10%
d) Qualify for CL knockout	20%
e) Qualify for CL final	15%
f)  Win the CL	5%
g) Win the FA Cup	6%
h) Win the League Cup	3%
i) Win the Charity Shield	1%
Total	100%

In my uninformed, unqualified and it seems outlying opinion, any progress through the two domestic cups that do not result in silver wear is worth zero.  Nothing.  Diddly squat.

In fact, it would  likely be detrimental to our chances of achieving other objectives, so any victories in cup matches when we do not win the trophy come March/May are detrimental to our success from a purely results driven and not monetary perspective.

So what did we really lose on Sunday?  At most you could claim we lost 6% of our season.  However, that is not really the case.  This was not the FA Cup final.  If we had lost the FA Cup final to Leeds, that would be a different story.  I probably wouldn’t have come out of my room to face the world yet.  Man United lost the opportunity to have to win 6 more games against random opposition to achieve 6% of their seasons overall objectives.

Given the hindsight of the fact that Leeds’ 4th round draw is an away fixture at White Hart Lane, I am going to suggest that the probability of Man United going on to successfully win the required ties, and therefore the cup to be:

0.65*0.75*0.75*0.65*0.51=0.119

So we lost 11.9% of 6% of our overall objectives for a successful 2009/2010 season.  Otherwise known as 0.71% of our season.

So we lost less on Sunday than we did back in August when we lost the Charity Shield.

I guess this is the natural point to address the “rivalry” yellow card some of you will no doubt be about to waft in my face.

I can tell you now, it p*sses me off much more to lose ANY fixture, in ANY competition, to Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City or Arsenal (in a very particular order!).

It doesn’t piss a rational person off to lose an FA Cup game to Leeds.  They won’t win the Cup.  So all they gain is some cash.  Good luck to them.  They bloody need it.  They paid £7 million for Seth Art Maurice Johnson!  More importantly they are in League 1 for crying out loud!

Anyway, I have digressed.  Where was I heading with all of this anyway?!

Well, I anticipate that around 85-86 points will be needed to win the league this year, something that Man United look just about able to achieve.  I think it is highly likely that Man United and Chelsea will be within a point or so, one way or another – as Blondie would say.

I think we can safely say Man United will achieve objective c) and secure a top 4 spot this season.

However, with the form of Arsenal and increased threat from non traditional top 4 clubs, anything more than that is far from guaranteed.

40% of our season’s objectives still hang delicately in the balance.

And that is the reason that losing “less meaningful” league games and those “unavoidable” slip ups away from home against weak opposition drive me up the wall.  Inefficient draws at home would do the same, however SAF doesn’t do those.  Watch and learn Rafa.  Watch and learn.

I am talking about the arrogant display at Burnley back in August. I am talking about the performance at Craven Cottage last month.  Injury crisis or no injury crisis, from certain players, it just wasn’t good enough.

They represent 4 points dropped based on historic average returns from the relative fixtures (away @ relegation team (2.1) and away @ Fulham (1.9) respectively).

If Man United end up 4 points or less short of retaining the Premier League title and I have to watch John Terry and Didier Drogba dancing around with our trophy come May, then it will be dire performances such as those discussed above that I will be thinking about whilst drowning my sorrows at the bottom of my 11th pint of lager.

And then I will be stressed.  Those type of wounds always take some time to heal, and they leave scars for life.