Bristol City vs Manchester United Preview

By Suraj Shivshankar -
Image result for bristol city vs manchester united
So the Carabao Cup defence continues, this time at Bristol City's humble abode of Ashton Gate stadium. We move on to this second consecutive away game after a tough draw against West Brom. Lukaku and Lingard scored, but a dodgy West Brom goal saw the game remain tight till the end.

I see plenty of fans moaning and quantifying every tiny flaw, but these are the games that we drew and dropped points at, last season. We are progressing slowly, but steadily. Besides, our team's core is still very young and most of them are yet to peak. Patience and time are fundamental ingredients for creating a dynasty that most journalists are absurdly crediting Pep for.

Manchester United is a club that has built its foundation of success on heaps and heaps of failure and disappointment. One team turning up after spending billions, is no reason to panic. Jose Mourinho beat Pep's 2011 Barcelona squad, who by popular opinion are one of the best teams in world football, to the title.

Moving on, Manchester United last played Bristol City in 1980, which saw us grab a 4-0 win. I feel that due to the previous games being so long ago, they become irrelevant. However, Bristol City are a very good side at their own level. They are third in the Championship and might very well be a Premier League team next season.


Bristol are on a four game winning streak and are going to be no pushovers. However, we do need to rest our key players as we face a resilient Leicester City (again away) on Saturday. So I have come up with a formation that will suit both games. 
   
 I am going to change most of the back-line and bring in the likes of Tuanzebe and Darmian in. I want to see Rojo in the team because I don't want him starting against Leicester. Maybe even play Blind at centre back and see how he fares. The midfield is going to be highly revamped as well because Fellaini has been ruled out during the hectic festive period.

Pogba and McTominay need to start for sure. Pogba makes his comeback tomorrow after suspension and minutes against a relatively easier side will do him good. McTominay is a bright prospect and needs to get as much game-time as he can get, in order to develop. Mentioning for the umpteenth time that this was the perfect game for Andreas Periera. Anyway, Matic has to be rested, no debate about that. He has been playing with a niggle and we can not lose him at this point in the season like we have lost Valencia. If it were down to me, I wouldn't even tell him to travel to Bristol.

In my opinion, this is the perfect game to bench Lukaku and bring Mkhitaryan back in. I didn't want him to be benched for the Premier League games so as to help build his confidence, so this seems like a nice opportunity. He has played 90 mins in all games for United this season and we need him fit to bully Morgan and Maguire on Boxing Day. So my lineup for the game against Bristol City would be: 

Predicted 11: Romero; Tuanzebe, Blind, Lindelof; Darmian, Herrera, Pogba, McTominay, Shaw; Mkhitaryan, Rashford.

Score prediction: 2-0 United win. (Mkhitaryan and Pogba)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Three Transfers That Need to Happen for Manchester United

By Christian H. Marcusson -
Image
Source: EPA

Manchester United have, during the course of the season, been crying out for new signings to join the club. The signings that have been most prevalent that need to be made have been a new centre half to accompany Victor Lindelof, a right winger which has been needed for years as both Antonio Valencia and Jesse Lingard have adapted to the unnatural position, and a right back to replace Ashley Young and to complement Diogo Dalot.

Three players have been mentioned as the most likely signings that could happen for Manchester United. They are also the players which many believe could take Manchester United to the next level and potentially challenge for the Premier League title next season.

Kalidou Koulibaly has been heavily linked with Manchester United for a long period of time, especially during the January transfer window, but nothing came of the rumours. Manchester United will instead be looking to sign the Senegalese centre half in the summer to potentially build a long-l…
Read more

Where do United need to strengthen the most?

By Arion Armeniakos -
Image
Before the appointment of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as the interim manager, it seemed as though half of the team needed to be moved on, and some major reinforcements were going to be necessary in the summer.

As we stand now approaching the final stretch of the season, it no longer feels that way. The feeling in and around Manchester United seems to be that there is enough talent at the club to lead it back to glory. The summer transfer window should be more about finding three or four solid pieces to strengthen the team that would be the league leaders if we only counted the points earned since Ole’s appointment. 
Personally, I would like to see Ole be given the job, to allow him to bring in some players that he thinks are needed in order to get to that next level and give the team the depth necessary to compete for the league title. The thought of that and a full pre-season under his watch makes me very optimistic for what is ahead regardless of the results for the rest of the season. 
N…
Read more

Big Phil Jones

By Chase Horton -
Image
Many fans want to sell him – and they have reason to. He has cost us multiple own-goals, penalties, and other defensive errors – that’s when he’s not with the Manchester United physicians, trying to recover from yet another injury. His name is Phil Jones, and he may seem like he has more cons than pros to his name, but I’m here to convince you otherwise.
Just what does ‘Big Phil’ have to offer?
Phil Jones may produce some of the biggest bone-headed mistakes (see our 2018 FA Cup final disaster), but despite all of that, he still gives 110% for the United badge, and that’s more than you can say for some players. Jones is United through and through, a very loyal player. And in today’s game where transfers happen in a blink of an eye and players openly talk about (possibly) moving to other teams, loyalty is somewhat of a rarity. Take Pogba for example; speaking just last week on the possibility of a Real Madrid move, the Frenchman said that it would be a “dream” to play under Zinedine Zida…
Read more

Centre Back Options That We Should Be Looking At!

By Suraj Shivshankar -
Image
Solskjaer's magical start to his managerial career at Manchester United is now sure to be rewarded with the permanent job at the club. Reports say that the announcement could come as early as this week. With that out of the way, our board can now focus on signings for the summer transfer window because we need a lot of them! One of the key areas we need strengthening in is defence. This upcoming transfer window will be a massive one for us. It will show the world our intent. It will show the world of football exactly where our interests lie. Are we satisfied with fighting for top 4 or do we want the big trophies? An example of how a big club behaves has been demonstrated in the last few weeks. The first one was Real Madrid already locking in a deal for Eder Militao because they know that this season was completely unacceptable by their standards. Their arch rivals, Barcelona, have already signed Frenkie De Jong and are now close to signing De Ligt as well.  Manchester United need…
Read more

Hangover: Part IV - Manchester United Edition - and remedies to cure it

By indian_mourinho -
Image
The night of 6th March 2019 will go down as one of the finest in the history of Manchester United. What Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's men achieved that night was beyond impossible. Never before in the grand history of the European Cup had a team recovered from a 2-0 deficit at home to go and qualify for the next round. But Rashford's thumping penalty, deep into stoppage time, sent millions of United fans around the world into rapturous celebrations. 

Solskjaer had done it, yet again. His team had indeed climbed the mountains that he had said were there to be climbed. It seemed like Solskjaer couldn't do anything wrong. But then came the hangover from that night in Paris. Solskjaer, who had lost just one match before that night, lost back to back games that saw the Red Devils crash out of the FA Cup and lose the 4th place to Arsenal in the league.
Three days after the PSG result, United faced Arsenal at the Emirates. Spurs' loss at St.Mary's had opened up the top four race a…
Read more

Sunderland u23’s v Manchester United u23’s: Match Report

By Brett Worthington -
Image
(GettyImages.com)
Manchester United u23’s had to settle for a hard-fought point on Friday night as they came back to draw 1-1 against Sunderland at the Stadium of Light, thanks to Largie Ramazini’s first goal at u23 level.
It was a week that United’s academy staff would have been proud to see after regular options for Ricky Sbragia were not considered because of their involvement in Paris during the week. Brandon Williams, James Garner, Angel Gomes, Tahith Chong, and Mason Greenwood will all have benefited hugely from the experience in one the most memorable nights in the club's history of knockout football in Europe.
This meant Sbragia had to rely on his midfield consisting of a trio from the under 18’s- Ethan Galbraith, Dylan Levitt, and Aliou Traore. Centre back Di’Shon Bernard and Ramazini were also selected. 
(Chroniclelive.com)
Sunderland went into half-time a goal up thanks to Benjamin Kimpioka, but a battling performance from the Red Devils in the second half led to Ramazini …
Read more

OPINION: Which players should United sign?

By Arjun Handa -
Image
Manchester United is the biggest club in the world and so has attracted the biggest names in world football to join the Red Devils and compete at the top level consistently for many years. It is clear that Manchester United desperately need positive signings during the summer to compete for the title next year under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. This can be traced back to when Jose Mourinho was not backed in the summer in signing a right winger and more clearly, a central defender but can even be traced further back under Van Gaal and Moyes in which the potential siginings of Bale, Kroos, Mane, Muller, Renato Sanches and James Rodruigez all slipped through the grasps of the current manager at the time. What's more is that some of the signings have not delivered as much as they could have such as Schneiderlin, Memphis, Di Maria or Alexis Sanchez.

Recently, former-United and Evertonian, Phil Neville has commented on who he believes United should sign, giving a list of five players to come …
Read more

Mason Greenwood - The Real Deal?

By Chase Horton -
Image
When you hear the term “young talent,” most people think of names such as Marcus Rashford, Kylian Mbappé, or Jadon Sancho. Well, it’s time to add another name to that ever-growing list – Mason Greenwood.

The 17 year-old Manchester United academy player has been able to see more of the pitch in recent weeks, notably United’s 3-1 win against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champion’s League, and their 2-0 defeat against Arsenal in the Premier League. Greenwood was a substitute in both games, coming in for Ashley Young in the PSG game in the 87th minute and replacing Nemanja Matić in the 80th minute against Arsenal.

What have we learned about Mason Greenwood? Although Mason Greenwood has only been able to see the pitch towards the end of games, anyone watching can see that he doesn’t play with nervousness about him, like most 17 year-olds play with. If I were to describe young Greenwood in one word, it would be ‘aggressive.’ The kid plays with next to no fear. In the game against PSG, Greenwo…
Read more

Reds on International Duty Preview

By Njabz -
Image
A short synopsis of each Manchester United player that has been selected to represent their respective countries during the international break. Woe is me. International Break has reared its injury-filled head again and although it may be good for some of our players to get some game time, it can be a bit of a crisis considering that we always have one or two players that come back either fatigued or injured. Thankfully this is the last international break for the season, so hopefully after this our players can fully focus on the Premier league and the Champions League. The following is a list of players who will be representing their countries in the upcoming break.

England: With “Mike” Chris Smalling, Ashley Young and injury-prone Phil Jones not making the cut, it was assumed that Luke Shaw would be one of the players selected in this international break. Fantastic news up until he suffered an injury. We seem to have the worst of luck just as things were turning out well. Shaw has be…
Read more

Dean Henderson: Another Top Class United Goalkeeper?

By Brett Worthington -
Image
The 22-year-old Manchester United goalkeeper has become one of the best in the Championship this season, having signed for Sheffield United last summer on a season-long loan and Henderson will be hoping his performances and potential promotion to the Premier League will catch the eye of United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. 

Henderson has kept seven consecutive clean sheets in his last seven outings for the Blades as Chris Wilder’s men target automatic promotion to the Premier League. ‘Deano’ as nicknamed by the Blades fans, signed a new two-year deal at Old Trafford in the summer, with the option of a third. His contract was coming to an end, but his stellar performances which helped his old side Shrewsbury Town make it all the way to the League One play-off final and him personally making League One Team of the Year, saw United reward him for his fine form. Henderson has also had successful loan spells at Stockport County and Grimsby Town since joining United.

Sheffield United beat of…
Read more