Feb 15
Evra returns to add impetus to United’s left
Rio Ferdinand and Jonny Evans can also be added to the list of people returning from injuries, but the big plus will undoubtedly be Patrice Evra’s return. With an imposing defence a given, Evra’s presence can give that bit of thrust that, at various stages of our campaign, has seemed missing.
His tireless running, determination, and ability to show sudden bursts of acceleration to surge forward will be very important for our upcoming games — especially in Europe.
However, the coaching staff is not willing to take any risks with regard to Wayne Rooney. For once, I am quite happy about that. Rooney, while having amazing powers of recovery, has in the past been rushed back to fitness. It has served him well from time to time, but he also takes an inordinate amount of time to get back to his scoring vein of form. He adds a lot to our attacking threat and is crucial in our counters. But I’d rather take a fully fit Rooney. We have enough squad members to do the job while he’s away. Wait, what am I saying — Berbatov and Tevez is a forward line most managers would kill to have. They aren’t squad players, are they?
There is an account of Michael Carrick by Paul Hayward in the Guardian, which I think is occasionally over the top. The article was on Carrick’s importance in England’s — Fabio Capello’s, specifically — scheme of thinks. Yes, he’s a good passer of the ball. Yes, his ball retention is important to England. Yes, he’s been rather good for United this season. But when he goes as far as calling him “a decent bet for world footballer of the year”, then I can’t help but frown. Carrick for England is yet to prove himself and stamp his authority. He has had excellent games for United, but there is still an element in his game that keeps him from the Xavi’s and Pirlo’s of the world.
Well, I couldn’t care less about his England fortunes. When someone like Scholes can get a raw deal in his England outings, I’d rather Carrick makes a name for himself for United than England.
On today’s game, I think the lineup will be full strength (whatever that means) as Fergie will hope to avoid a replay. So it should be EVDS, Rafael, Vidic, Rio, Evra, Park, Carrick, Fletcher, Ronaldo, Tevez and Berbatov. Of course the central midfield could be a little different — Giggsy’s form could see him make it. Or Brown could play instead of Rafael.
Prediction: 2-0 to United.
Live Blog: Yes, hopefully. I will put up the link about 15 minutes before the game if I do it. Will update the post with the link, or you could just refresh the main page 15 mins prior to the game.
Related items from Red Rants:
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- 3 Young Midfielders For Manchester United’s Summer Shopping List
- United’s £100k+ Christmas party, useless Shorey, Arsenal will stumble and of course, Rooney is better than Kaka
- Brown, Lahm – United’s Right Back Situation | And Some Thoughts on Nani
- United’s slim title hopes hanging by a thread.
Tags: Manchester United News
Opti (541)
Stephen (490)
RedDevilEddy (461)
Craig Mc (349)
Moscow is my heaven (272)
i reckon neville could get a game. rio and evans at the centre, to give vida a rest. fletcher and giggs in the centre. ronaldo and tosic on the wings. tevez and welbeck upfront.
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@Dan: What about giving Fabio a run today, lets see what he is made up of?
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@despicable: fabio has been out for a couple of weeks, and tbh, will not be used as much as his twin in the title run in. evra has been out for more or less 2 months(not including chavski game), he needs this game a lot more then fabio.
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@ Dan – Fabio played and scored on Thursday, but I thnk we’ll play Evra.
Last time at Derby was the worst 90 minutes I’ve seen us play in a decade. I’m hoping that’ll be motivation enough to teg the boys up for this one.
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I see no reason to field a full strength team. Certainly an improvement on the sides we fielded in the league cup is required as Derby seem to be a good cup team. But we should give a chance to some squad players to see what they can do.
Id like this team:
Foster, O’Shea/Fabio, Vidic, Rio, Brown, Tosic, Fletcher, Carrick, Nani, Tevez, Welbeck
Giggs needs a rest because we need him fresh for the more important games and eventually his age will start to tell. Id like a look at Brown because we need him matchfit for the Inter game. The Count deserves a rest having played the most games this season out of all our strikers and it would be nice to give Welbeck another chance to impress to make up for his disappointing displays against Derby in the League Cup.
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Brown had a bruised foot for the last PL game against West Ham, dont know if it was bad enough to take him out for this one too. I hope he is fit enough to atleast play as a sub. And yeah, Giggsy needs a rest after so many stellar performances in the recent past, that said I didn’t see much in his performance against the Hammers except for his phenomenal goal. But yeah, he won the match for us, rolling back the years on the way.
I would also like to see us steamrolling Derby for once. This shoudl also prove to be an ideal oppurtunity for Rio and Vidic to get used to each other. Vidic although doing his job decently, hasn’t been at his monstrous best that he was say two weeks go. Tosic hopefully should get a run.
One thing that I have observed is that Park is deemed as a first team starter or us and Nani is almost forgotten, I mean when was the last time we saw Nani, is he out injured? And Park really isn’t getting much sticlk these days from anyone, maybe because he has been relatively quiet and hasn’t been featuring in matches. We would know everything is back to normal when we see people bemoaning his performances
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RR: On the Carrick article it is worth pointing out that Hayward’s writing style has been prone to a bit exaggeration and hyperbole to carry his points across since his Daily Mail days. He is a decent writer otherwise to be fair. He makes some interesting points around the different passing styles of Carrick and Scholes in particular.
Specifically I don’t think he was referring to Carrick being a WPOTY but rather winning the player of the year award in England. It is still a long shot but given he seems to be in the running for United’s player of the year so far it is not completely out of the question (particularly with the dearth of outstanding forwards as competition this year). As for the comparison to Pirlo, I think Carrick has been performing to a higher standard for a considerable length of time. I have always bracketed Carrick along with Pirlo, Xavi and Alonso in terms of style. When we bought him I would have put him fourth on that list but now I think he stands only behind Xavi.
As for his England fortunes I am in agreement but England success would get him some much deserved recognition outside of United (not that appearing for England helped the Neville brothers reputations
).
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@Beachryan: what does that have to do with anything?
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i reckon that we’ll put out a weak team today… nick a goal, and be boring, but at least we will win…
chris commons will be shut out today if rio and vidic play together… that is the end of derby’s threat…
hopefully we see the junior squad members play well in a desire to prove them selves. then and only then will we get a match
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United should win today but it could be difficult match. I hope that Red Devils will score at least 2 goals!
Derby vs Manchester United Live stream (will be available 15 – 10 minutes before kick off)
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I hope we play better than we did a month ago. Boy, that was humiliating. The mates still havent stopped bugging me about that. Fucking cunts! But I expect a better performance. Which in all honesty shouldnt be that hard. Just dont play the worst game in the clubs history and that is fullfilled.
No, I want a dominant win. Its fucking Derby we are talking about!!! They are in the record books for eing the worst team to ever play in the English first division. And its not like they got relegated 8 years ago, its not gone 365 days yet. Even if we play with Oshea, Park or Gibson, we should be able to beat some fucking rams! I think we will field this team:
Foster
Rafael Rio Evans Evra
Park Carrick Scholes Ronaldo
Tevez Berbatov
Score prediction: 3-0 to United.
Kill them!!!
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team news?
me thinks foster will not play. its PIG’s turn to shine!
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Just my luck. I’m going to have to watch the game when I return later this afternoon after helping a friend of mine sell his crap at a sportscards and collectibles show. I hate missing a live game. So if none of you hear from me regarding the game for a while, don’t panic, Grognard will return later today. Hopefully he will have lots of positives to write about.
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Foster, Rafael Da Silva, Ferdinand, Evans, Evra, Park, Fletcher, Gibson, Nani, Giggs, Ronaldo
Subs: Kuszczak, Vidic, Scholes, Welbeck, O’Shea, Tevez, Possebon
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Hm, no striker.
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——————PIG——————–
GingerEck—Rio——–Evans———-Evra
-Ronaldo—-Giggs——Fletcher—–Welbeck
———-Berby———–Apache——–
prediction: Derby 1(Commons) Manchester United 4 (Ronaldo, Apache, Apache, Apache)
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ow my predicted line ups were beaten by the official one.
well, a 4-nil win will do.
“it’s just derby.”
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@SRAB: looks like Ronnie and Giggs- unless it’s a 4-4-3
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Its a 4-4-1-1 with Giggs playing off Ronaldo. I think the intention is to win 1-0 without breaking too much of a sweat. The Count and Carrick get the day off underlining their importance to the team. Gibson and Fletcher is a pretty defensive midfield and Derby won’t get past that defence.
I predict 1-0 with a Ronaldo or a Nani goal settling the affair.
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If anyone wants a stream its been shown live on ITV’s website
http://www.itv.com/Sport/Football/VideoWall/VideoDetail/default.html?vodcrid=sim1&playerimage=http%3a%2f%2fwww.itv.com%2fimg%2f624x351/Watch-Derby-v-Man-U-8a236fe3-7704-4b71-80a2-d3b9c531baf2.jpg
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Live blog is up
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