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Here we are again, another away day. Only this time, it’s arguably the toughest of the lot so far. Our recent form away from home has been well documented, conceding goals for fun, defensively a shambles. We have no injury crisis to blame this season unlike last, its simply players not performing to their usual standard. Jonny Evans, it seems, has lost all confidence in his ability and the French debacle at the World Cup has obviously affected Patrice Evra, who is a shadow of the player we all know and love. With players out of form, and players in the papers for the wrong reasons, its been quite a shaky start to the season.
Valencia on the other hand have made a brilliant start to the La Liga season and are currently unbeaten and sitting top of the table, just above Barcelona and Real Madrid. This form will surprise many, as during the summer they lost their 2 key players in David Silva (Manchester City) and David Villa (Barcelona). They were not the only departures during the summer as Ruben Baraja, Nikola Zigic, Carlos Marchena and Alexis all left which netted a nice profit of almost €90 million. €26 million of that money was spent on 6 new recruits including Ricardo Costa, Sofiane Feghouli, Mehmet Topal, Roberto Soldado, and Aritz Aduriz. Already it looks like a bargain.
As usual away from home in Europe, I can see us adopting a 4-5-1 formation, especially with Wayne Rooney unfit to travel, with Berbatov played as a lone striker. It’s not his best position but with the passing ability of the evergreen Paul Scholes he should get some chances, and the way he has started the season, I wouldn’t bet against him to stick one away. Ryan Giggs, like Rooney, is also unavailable through injury.
A win would be great, as we don’t want to be falling behind the leaders even at this very early stage, but a draw is more likely. Either way I hope the drive and passion is a bit more prevalent than it was in the Rangers game. We certainly don’t want to pull a Liverpool from last season!
Predicted line-up:
Manchester United: Edwin Van Der Sar; Patrice Evra, Nemanja Vidic, Jonny Evans, John O’Shea; Ji-Sung Park, Paul Scholes, Darren Fletcher, Darron Gibson, Nani; Dimitar Berbatov.
Big Easy
Big Easy
