The United Devils

Carabao Cup  4th Round
30 October 2019
Stamford Bridge
Full Time Result Chelsea 1 (Batshuayi)  Man Utd 2 (Rashford 24min and 73min)

Manchester United have moved themselves into the quarterfinals of the Carabao Cup with a hard fought victory away at Stamford Bridge against an inform Chelsea side ending Chelsea's run of seven victories in all competitions. United showed encouraging signs and this resolute 2-1 victory away to Chelsea brought another win to make three in a row, another two goals for the suddenly revitalised Marcus Rashford. The game itself was pretty end to end and both teams showed desire and intent to win the tie. The way both teams were set up was a sign of things to come with Chelsea trying to keep possession whilst Man Utd were looking for the opportunities to catch their opponents on the counter attack. Solskjaer had made four changes to the side who defeated Norwich on Sunday, bringing in Brandon Williams for his first domestic start, Sergio Romero came in for …

On Wednesday the 30th of October Manchester United travel Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea in the Carabao Cup. Manchester United come in to this game with two victories and two draws in their last five games, Chelsea come in to this having won all of the last 5 games. With this stat and the fact that Chelsea are playing at home we can say clear favourites for the victory. So Manchester United will have to cause and upset if they want to progress to the next round of the cup.

In recent memory Manchester United vs Chelsea has always been a fiercely contested fixture. While current form favours Chelsea the form in this fixture in recent years favours Manchester United with them getting two wins and two draws in a last five games, whilst scoring 9 and only conceding 4 during that time.

Manchester United have been in a recent uptake of good form with two victories in their last two games, against Norwich and Partisan respectively. These two results put an end to United's recent terribl…

The Premier League action this weekend failed to disappoint with record-equalling victories, VAR drama and a tense comeback by Liverpool as they successfully maintained their six point gap to Manchester City. Here are the results:
Southampton vs Leicester City 0-9 Manchester City vs Aston Villa 3-0 Watford vs Bournemouth 0-0 Brighton vs Everton 3-2 West Ham vs Sheffield United 1-1 Burnley vs Chelsea 2-4 Newcastle vs Wolves 1-1 Arsenal vs Crystal Palace 2-2 Norwich City vs Manchester United 1-3 Liverpool vs Tottenham Hotspur 2-1
And here are the ratings: SOUTHAMPTON 0/10 Awful. Just awful. Yes, they went down to 10 men but it was at 1-0. At that point Southampton should have done what they did against United - defend to the last man and try and get into the game. They were sliced apart with ease and looked very poor in attack. They need a good, long look at themselves before their back-to-back games against City. Could get embarrassing...well, even more so.
LEICESTER CITY 10/10 Outstanding in eve…

Martial pounces to secure all three points. Photo Credit: Getty Images
What a difference a few days can make. After Leicester's mauling of Southampton on Friday night the general consensus was that, in terms of the quality of football, we were much closer to the Saints than the Foxes, and the league table did nothing to assuage those concerns. Going into this game there was a real feeling that anything less than a victory against an unpredictable Norwich side would plunge United into a relegation dogfight and may even have pushed the Glazers to reach for their dwindling stack of P45s. The 'Ole out' brigade were busy sharpening their keyboards while the 'Ole in' camp were beavering away in their bedrooms, bending statistics to fit their narrative.

Then it happened. Manchester United won their first away league fixture since Crystal Palace on 27th February, and not only that, they scored more than one goal in a game for the first time since the opening weekend and go…

Manchester United built on their impressive performance against Liverpool with their first win in six games and finally, the first away win for Manchester United since the dramatic comeback against PSG. While the performance against Partizan was not the best, the result mattered more as United currently top the group. Now United will continue their spell of away games against Norwich before making trips south to Chelsea and Bournemouth next week.

Here's all you need to know for match: Teams: Norwich City vs Manchester United Stadium: Carrow Road Date: Sunday 27th October 2019 KO Time: 16:30 GMT Managers: Daniel Farke and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer  Referee: Stewart Atwell
Team News: Norwich City should have Ben Godfrey and Onel Hernandez despite the former coming off at half time against Bournemouth and the latter still in some pain from his latest injury. Goalkeeper Ralf Fahrmann, midfielder Mario Vrancic and defenders Christoph Zimmermann Timm Klose and Grant Hanley remain out. Manchester U…

At last, Manchester United's (shameful) record of games without an away win has come to an end. After failing to win away from home since that famous night in Paris in March earlier this year, United hung on to secure a 1-0 victory in Serbia on Thursday night.

It was by no means a performance to rave about, but at this point and under the current circumstances, a win is a win. After putting in an encouraging performance against Liverpool on the weekend, United desperately needed to get a result that they could build on in Belgrade. And in spite of yet another toothless performance in the final third, the Reds managed to grab all three points and remain on top of the group table.

To give the team some credit, the first half wasn't terrible. Again, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's men could have been up by at least a couple before the interval, but the struggles in front of goal continued.

First, Scott McTominay missed a wide open header after a great free kick delivery from Juan Mat…

Manchester United, who were written off against Liverpool produced a performance which proved that they are an actual team with passion, drive and ability . Something which was lacking since we beat Chelsea.
It remains to be seen if we can carry this kind of performance on to other teams, most especially those that set up a deep block. A perfect time is on Thursday when we face Partizan in Serbia in which victory will take United top of Group L. However, United's prospects are not helped by the fact that Partizan sit fifth in the Serbian SuperLiga and have an impressive record at home this season. In nine home games this term, Partizan have only lost once and conceded on just seven occasions over that period.
Teams: Partizan Belgrade and Manchester United Competition: Europa League Venue: Partizan Stadium Date: Thursday, 24 October 2019 Kick-off: 17:55 PM BST Managers: Savo Milosevic and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer Referee: Xavier Estrada Fernandez
Players to Watch Umar Sadiq (Partizan Belgrade…

After another international break of Euro qualifications, broken records and racism scandals, the Premier League returned with some crucial matches in the race for top four, the escape from relegation and, for some managers, much needed results to escape the sack. Here are the results from this weekend's action:

Everton vs West Ham 2-0
Aston Villa vs Brighton 2-1
Wolves vs Southampton 1-1
Leicester City vs Burnley 2-1
Chelsea vs Newcastle 1-0
Tottenham vs Watford 1-1
Bournemouth vs Norwich 0-0
Crystal Palace vs Manchester City 0-2
Manchester United vs Liverpool 1-1
Sheffield United vs Arsenal 1-0

Here are the grades:
EVERTON 8.5/10
Desperately needed win for Marco Silva's side. Perhaps poor defending and goalkeeping for Bernard's goal but Everton kept going and Sigurdsson's goal was sublime. Iwobi looks very comfortable in the no.10 role and Davis looks better than Schneiderlin has recently. Could be the win to kick start their season.

WEST HAM 5/10
Poor again. After the win agai…

Since Luke Shaw's arrival at Manchester United in 2014 it's fair to say he has had an inconsistent time. Over the course of six seasons of Premier League football Luke Shaw has only managed 75 appearances which shows just how little he has managed to get on the pitch and show what he's capable of. This has mostly been due to his continuous injuries and inconsistent form.

When we first bought Luke Shaw from Southampton in 2014 everyone thought that he would be a success and a future England international left back. However, this is not being the case. After a promising start to his Manchester United career Luke Shaw suffered a double leg break which could have ended his career. Thankfully it didn't but it's hard to look past that moment as the start of Luke Shaw's inconsistencies. Since then he has been injured again and again and has also gone through bad spells on the pitch and good spells on the pitch but never really grab hold of any opportunity he was give…

Image Credit: Getty Images
Considering United's current form versus that of their opponents, you would expect a draw to be something worth celebrating, however, Solskjær's men can legitimately feel hard done by as overall they were the better team on the day. The eleventh hour injury to Tuanzebe proved to be United's undoing, as replacement Rojo was caught napping in the dying minutes.

The story of the first half was one of passion, pace and intensity from a Manchester United side that looked nothing like the abject bunch of misfits who've been stinking out the Premier League in recent weeks. Every player looked focused and confident, shifting the ball forwards at every opportunity and taking the game to a Liverpool side who have looked shaky recently, despite their impressive string of results. Rashford and James were particularly effective, pulling the Liverpool defenders into positions they'd rather not be in and putting doubt in the full-backs minds every time …

They certainly do not come any bigger than this. The showdown against Liverpool is always the first game all players and fans look for when the fixtures are released at the start of every summer, but with the circumstances the way they currently are for Manchester United, the magnitude of this game has reached a new level.

The two teams couldn't be any further apart in terms of overall quality and league rankings. Liverpool are in dreamland. They have gathered all of the points that have been up for grabs in the league so far through eight game weeks, and they sit atop of the Premier League with an eight point cushion over second placed Manchester City.

You have to scroll down a little to locate Manchester United who currently sit at No. 12, 15 points behind their arch rivals from Merseyside. The gulf in the table is quite frightening, and the worst part is that it doesn't get any smaller on the pitch.

Although Jurgen Klopp's side hasn't been dropping 10/10 performanc…

As Manchester United prepare for their toughest match of the season thus far against arch rivals and run away Premier League leaders Liverpool. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and his coaching staff will need to ensure  the Red Devils are ready to face the challenge of playing against a team gifted with the  attacking minded skills of Salah, Mane, Firmino and get past the likes of Van Dijk, Robertson and Alexander Arnold.  On paper it appears the Red Devils have an uphill battle and they will need to fight for the entire match against a team who seem simply unstoppable in the Premier League. However one thing is for certain you can never predict the outcome of the result when these two teams play against each other and as a result any  outcome is possible.

Solskjaer has indicated that two star players  David de Gea and  Paul Pogba have been ruled out due to injury concerns and will not make the matchday squad for the crucial encounter.  Martial has been out of action since August and has misse…

Image Credit: sportbible.com
After a disastrous start to the 2019/20 Premier League campaign, it is already clear that Manchester United's first team and squad lacks both top quality and depth. The biggest issue I see with the squad is the lack of great and world class players in the starting XI and the fact that players like Pereira, Lingard and Greenwood are being relied upon when they are simply not good enough or too inexperienced at this point in time. However, if we focus on 5/6 top tier starting XI signings and demote some of out current starters to squad players, I think we will find ourselves in a far better situation and our squad depth is not as big an issue as the lack of starting XI quality. Naturally, alongside the speculation of transfer targets, there will also be speculation around the future of Solskjaer, the board and the owners, however, in this article I want to purely focus on the players that I believe Manchester United should target if they really want to …

Photo Credit: sundaypost.com
Scott McTominay's career has been on a steady upwards trajectory ever since Jose Mourinho named the relatively unknown, gangly young midfielder as a substitute in a Premier League match against Swansea back in April 2017. It was hard to tell from his first few appearances whether he was destined for regular first team football, although Mourinho insisted that he had all the tools and was almost certain to reach the top. Mourinho's detractors suggested that McTominay was promoted beyond his ability simply to fend off the suggestion that the manager didn't trust young players, which was a massive disservice to a young man who'd been with Manchester United since he was five years old and who had displayed tremendous mental fortitude by retraining as a midfielder after a lengthy growth spurt derailed his original career path as a striker.

Almost two and a half years have passed since his debut and now he's the first name on the teamsheet, a…

The international break is a time that football fans world wide enjoy reflecting on the season  assessing and debating how their teams have performed thus far. Teams hold their collective breath that players gone off to play internationals return unscathed and fully fit to play for their respective clubs.  As a full fledged passionate Manchester United fan its been a time of reflection and concern.  Manchester United  is a club  trying to  rebuild the "Glory Days"  with one of their own at the helm  in Ole Gunnar Solskjaer  at the helm. The general feeling around Old Trafford is a sense of disappointment and  this is highlighted by the worst start to the season in 30 years. A sequence of results that has brought two wins in eight Premier League games is something Manchester United fans have seldom experienced.

The quest to find stability in a manager to replace the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson and build on his legacy  has been telling and many believe current incumbent is no…

The international break is thankfully upon us, at least we have time to recover after a very horrendous past weeks. Nine of our players have been called up by their countries for international break.
Who are the players who were called Up? Marcos Rojo was called for Argentina's upcoming friendlies against Germany and Ecuador Harry Maguire and Marcus Rashford were called up for the England squad Euro 2020 qualifiers where they will face Czech Republic and Bulgaria. On loan goalkeeper Dean Henderson, was also called in what is his first England senior call-up following the withdrawal of Tom Heaton through injury. Scott McTominay, our September player of the month was called up to the squad for Scotland.  Unfortunately, he is suspended for the Russia match after picking up three bookings, but he will be available for their next game. David De Gea was called for Spain's games against Norway and then against Sweden. Victor Lindelof was selected in Sweden's squad for their two …

Another weekend of Premier League football is in the books — and with the ever so exciting international break upon us yet again, let's take a look at all of the results from game week eight:

Brighton 3-0 Tottenham
Burnley 1-0 Everton
Liverpool 2-1 Leicester
Norwich 1-5 Aston Villa
Watford 0-0 Sheffield United
West Ham 1-2 Crystal Palace
Arsenal 1-0 Bournemouth
Man. City 0-2 Wolves
Southampton 1-4 Chelsea
Newcastle 1-0 Man. United

Check out the individual team ratings below:

Brighton: 10/10

The ongoing drama at Tottenham aside, that is a fantastic result for Brighton who picked up only their second win of the season. The other took place on opening day, meaning it was a huge relief for the Seagulls to get back into the win column. The performance was also there. The hosts overwhelmed the struggling Spurs, pouncing on all of their mistakes and securing a potential momentum shifting win.

Tottenham: 3/10
No matter what is going on behind the scenes, it is unacceptable for a team with Tottenham&#…