Manchester United face Tottenham, Manchester City and Liverpool within the next month to secure Champions League football.
According to former Red Devils captain, Next month will define Gary Neville, Manchester United’s season over the next month.
United defeated Leeds United 4-2 on Sunday to extend their advantage over fifth-placed West Ham to four points as the top-four race for Champions League qualification continues to twist and turn.
Arsenal is down in sixth, also four points behind United, but the Gunners boast three games in hand heading into the crunch period of the Premier League campaign.
With trips to Manchester City and Liverpool to come in March, sandwiched by a home clash with Tottenham, Neville believes the upcoming month will be pivotal for Ralf Rangnick’s side.
On his Sky Sports podcast, Gary Neville said:
“They are playing Atletico Madrid away on Wednesday; they have got Tottenham, Liverpool, Manchester City coming up.
“It is a big month, and that month is going to define the season in terms of finishing in the top four and progressing in the Champions League.
“There is a lot of stuff coming out continuously: the captaincy, who they want as the next manager, cliques in the dressing room.
“All that sort of stuff comes out, but they do continue to keep having those big moments in matches where their brilliant players can still deliver for them, and they do win games in moments.
“They have got to stop those mad moments, those five-minute periods where they conceded two goals because if you concede two against City, Liverpool or Atletico, you are out of the game.
“Manchester United needed these points in the bag. It is inconceivable that coming out of Tottenham at home, Manchester City away, and Liverpool away will get seven to nine points.
“They could quickly come out of those three games with four points or five points or three points.
“So they are the type of games in any season you could lose over the last five or ten years.
“If you are Ralf Rangnick, you have got to plan that you are going to drop points in those three matches, not that you would foresee it or want it, but it could happen.
“These points that he has got from these last few matches will be needed. If you had said to me when Rangnick took over with the run of fixtures that they have got, this is where I would have wanted them to have been, maybe a point or two in front.”
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