Why Reds should all keep the faith, just like Ashley

BELIEF. Clearly, there is lots of it in that United dressing room.

“We’re involved in the FA Cup, Champions League, we can still win the league,” Ashley Young said following the 2-0 win against Huddersfield on Saturday.

“We know the points difference, but never say never. So we just need to keep getting points and keep progressing and, hopefully, win a trophy.”

You expect that kind of statement from players – they will never stop believing until it is mathematically impossible – and Juan Mata, Antonio Valencia and Nemanja Matic have all spoken in similar terms.

The trio have referenced United’s title collapse in 2012 in recent months, when Sir Alex Ferguson’s side famously threw away an eight-point lead with just six matches of the season left.

So was it any wonder that a dressing room leader like Young is not throwing in the towel despite that 16-point gap? Not just yet, anyway. But even the makeshift left-back would have been staggered by the events that unfolded at the DW Stadium on Monday night, when League One high-fliers Wigan shocked City and inflicted just their third defeat of the season.

Pep Guardiola always said that a quadruple would be ‘impossible,’ but he would never have imagined former Sligo Rovers boss Paul Cook delivering the fatal blow.

Particularly when Wigan were going through their worst run of the campaign after losing back-toback league games for the first time this season.

For all the possession City had – 83 per cent in fact – they managed a paltry five shots on target and looked uncharacteristically blunt up front.

Unsurprisingly, Guardiola sneered like he always does when a side defend resolutely.

He mentions the opposition’s attempts on goal. Why not point out the fact that goalscorer Will Grigg had just 19 touches while you are at it?

Gary Lineker came up with the understatement of the century when he said the Catalan has ‘got a little bit of a side to him’ as he went through a meltdown in front of the watching cameras in the tunnel at half-time following Fabian Delph’s red card.

Guardiola has lamented the lack of protection for his players on countless occasions this season, but only one other side in the Premier League has had more players sent off since the Catalan took charge.

Things don’t get any easier for City.

They face Arsenal in the Carabao Cup final on Sunday before a trip to the Emirates in the league four days later. They then play Chelsea, United and Spurs in the space of just a month. Games that may not be as straightforward as they seemed only a few weeks ago.

By then, of course, City could officially be champions. By then, United could have given them the dreaded guard of honour.

But talk that this City side were the greatest team to ever graced English shores, in the Premier League era at least, was a tad premature.

It is not over yet.