Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal expects the battle for Champions League qualification to go right down to the wire.
Van Gaal says his team are involved in a "rat race" with Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool and Southampton for the last two Champions League qualification places.
United sit fourth in the standings, just two points in front of Liverpool and four ahead of Southampton, who lead Spurs by two points -- although the Londoners do have a game in hand.
Van Gaal agrees with Arsene Wenger's claim that the contest will still be alive when United and Arsenal take on Hull and West Brom respectively on the last weekend of the season -- although he does not know whether the Arsenal manager was right when he said 72 points would be enough to secure a top-four finish.
"I don't think of how many points (it will take), but he is more experienced in the Premier League so I want to believe him," the United manager said.
"But it is going to the last week, I know that."
If Wenger's estimate is right, United will have to win seven and draw one of their last 11 matches.
That will be no easy task given that they have to face five of the other six teams in the top seven before the end of the season.
The Red Devils host Spurs, Manchester City and Arsenal and they also have to travel to Chelsea and Liverpool.
Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham and Southampton have only three fixtures against their rivals in the top seven, but Van Gaal does not seem overly perturbed by United's upcoming games.
He chewed up one question and spat it right back at a reporter on Tuesday when he suggested United had the hardest run-in.
"No, because you said that also in front of the games in the beginning of the season and then we were 13th, do you remember that?" Van Gaal snapped.
"And in spite of all the games that we had in front of us we moved up to third on the 22nd of November after the game against Chelsea."
Van Gaal's powers of recall are impressive, but for parts of this season the play his team has shown has not.
United may have lost twice in 22 matches but some fans have been unhappy with the slow pace of their play.
And during the 2-0 win over Sunderland on Saturday, United fans booed when Jonny Evans played the ball back to goalkeeper David de Gea.
Van Gaal understands the supporters' frustrations but insists passing back to the goalkeeper is sometimes not the worst option for a defender.
"You have to give credit of your doubt to your player and you have to support him," Van Gaal said before going on something of a technical explanation.
"When you make a mistake in defence it is more or less always a goal against. You have to see that also, the fans have to see that.
"But I agree with the fans that we don't have to use so much the goalkeeper, because I have seen also moments where we can play a higher tempo without interfering with the goalkeeper, but the goalkeeper is also the 11th player.
"He can accelerate our game also and sometimes the solution is, via De Gea, to play forward.
"That is a higher tempo than playing the ball to the player next to you as De Gea is always the second station and it is always better to play the second station, in my opinion, than the first station as you need a lot of first stations to come there."
Van Gaal wants United to stop surrendering possession so easily.
"What we can improve is our unnecessary ball losses," he said.
"When we can avoid too much ball losses unnecessarily then we make a big step."
Van Gaal looks set to recall Angel di Maria for Wednesday's trip to Newcastle even though he substituted the 59.7-million-pound man at half-time on Saturday.
"Di Maria is not the only player who has suffered a bad day," Van Gaal added on MUTV.
"He can be the best player in the world in the next match so I think everything is going well. He has trained very well and I don't think there is any problem."
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