vs Kick-off Sunday 1600 GMT, 1100 EST Venue Goodison Park Last season Everton 0 Manchester United 3 Live Sky Sports 1, NBCSN, MUTV online, Telemundo, beIN Sports/Direct TV (some countries) Referee Michael Oliver Everton Doubtful None Injured Besic (knee, Feb) Suspended None Form DLWLDL Discipline Y28 R0 Leading scorer Lukaku 7 Manchester United Doubtful None Injured Shaw (unknown), Smalling (toe, both 11 Dec), Bailly (knee, 17 Dec) Suspended Rooney (one match) Form DLDWDD Discipline Y30 R1 Leading scorer Ibrahimovic 7 Is there any team news?Luke Shaw could miss out and his fellow defenders Chris Smalling and Eric Bailly also appear unlikely to feature, but Paul Pogba and Marouane Fellaini will both be available for selection after serving a one-match suspension on Wednesday. Rooney was a star performer in that match and would have no doubt been relishing the opportunity to equal or even break United’s all-time goalscoring record at his old stomping ground, but a yellow card picked up in the second half of the cup win rules him out of this one. Everton also have a fairly clean bill of health, with James McCarthy in line to return to the fold following a recent hamstring injury. Mo Besic is the club’s one long-term absentee; the Bosnian sustained a serious knee injury in Rooney’s testimonial match before the start of the season.
Just more evidence of what appears to be clear bias against United from officials this season. Don't recall them all obviously, but some were distinctly cheap/undeserved.
You'll be seeing me pitch side pre-kickoff guys, as I'll be giving the players a guard of honour as it's International Day of Persons with Disabilities, and Everton have kindly asked disabled fans of both sides to be a part of it.
The starting team for Sunday should be as followed: DDG Valencia. Jones. Rojo. Blind Herrera. Pogba Miki. Mata. Martial Zlatan
That looks about right to me, Ashur. It will be interesting to see whether Ibra can handle a third match in 7 days.
thanks for the assist with the thread b0ski. i've not been able to sit at a PC and craft one since Wed. not that it takes long but it's tedious on a mobile device
I like how the team news in the first post says Rooney was the star in the last match. Because he didn't suck, he must've been the star. Surely no middle ground exists. Lol.
If we're being honest, Rooney's performance Wednesday was much better than "did not suck": he had a very good game. As a matter of fact, it probably was his best game for United in a very long time. He did not score but he did everything else right in a very dynamic and complete display, in support of Zlatan. Miki was clearly my MotM, but each player in the front 4 that day had reasonable shouts. We should be so lucky if he could maintain that level for an extended period of time. Jose's move to bench Rooney and give him more time between games, wile straightforward and seemingly obvious, looks to be paying dividends.
wayne HAS to start. since he was benched against leicester we are 2-5-1 (w-d-l). we won against leicester, and we won against swansea.....where wayne started and had 2 assists. wayne HAS to start games for us again. we are markedly performing worse as a team without him. we haven't even scored more than a single goal in a game he hasn't started, with the exception of the first game against leicester. this board and critics everywhere can finger it with the eye test all they want, but they'll only end up poking out their own eyes.
so are our results without him. edit: if you're in the business of being a pretty loser, by all means, captain. but i like winning.
This argument is such a massive red herring. Over those, are chance creation and fluidity has been on par, or better than anything the past few years, including the early season. Better finishing and we take all 5 of those ties as wins, comfortably. And the irony is Waynes finishing has been poor for several years now. His stats bear that out, as does the 'eye' test.
Not only does he not have to start, but I think it's pretty safe to say he won't start today....because he's suspended. Nice rant though.
His form has been better as of late but you still can not justify benching one of Mata, Herrera, Pogba, or Carrick for him. Rooneys new role on this team is to come off the bench and provide a spark if the team needs one.