United host Middlesbrough at Old Trafford. Solskjaer may not make the bench yet, but could be ready for the FA Derby on Saturday. No TV for this one though...
Squads in full Howard, Carroll, G Neville, Silvestre, Brown, O'Shea, Fortune, P Neville, Forlan, Ronaldo, Fletcher, Scholes, Butt, Keane, Solskjaer, Kleberson, Giggs, van Nistelrooy, Saha, Bellion. Middlesbrough (from): Schwarzer, Jones, Mills, Queudrue, Davies, Southgate, Riggott, Cooper, Mendieta, Zenden, Doriva, Juninho, Downing, Parnaby, Maccarone, Nemeth, Job. _____________________________________ Hmmmm... think Keano will get a rest in this one? Maybe Ruud too, with Saha and Forlan up front in a 4-4-2? Look for P. Nev to play the Keano role and Ronaldo to start on the right.... maybe play Klebs as well? Boro have been a problem for us the past couple of seasons too....
Re: Squads in full I agree about Keano being rested for this one. He normally doesn't play two in a week and I would rather he be given his nomral rest period.
With Keano sitting out I would rather we played either a 4-5-1 or play ruud and saha with the way the defence has been underperforming we may need the fire power... or to play more conservatively... I would like to see Forlan get the start though.... he's not played much despite playing well on occasion this season.
Going on last 6 matches between boro and man u 3 wins for man u and 3 wins for boro, and your wins i tihnk were all close 1-0's (a very dodgy van nistledive getting a penalty if i recall last years away match). This year a lucky deflected goal was the difference. And again if i remember rightly the other win was a mare goal from beckham that schwarzer should have coped with. With boro's victories coming in the shape of a 3-1 pasting ) ) at home last season, 2-0 the season before at home in the fa cup and a 1-0 win that season away. I would doubt very much that man u would rest thier best players going on how well they have done against us in the recent future. so i would expect a full strengthed man u team tommorow night. At least boro might at least get more than the usual 3 seconds on the premiership tonight :/
Other than Dj2 and Rio it looks like we have a full squad to choose from at long last. Other than switching Fletcher for Ronaldo (or Klebs / OGS) I hope SAF sticks to the same side, at home in particular we should play to our strengths. Also, towards the end of the campaign we usually settle on a side and stick to it. Fixtures not too congested recently, so I would have thought Keane should be OK to play.
Why do you think that Boro have given United problems, recently? IMO, it's because United have lacked pace in the attack to beat a team that has an organized, extremely defensive formation. I think that Ronaldo and Saha have solved this problem. Personally, I want Ruud to play: rest him against City, if necessary... Boro are a better team, after all. But I think it's a good game to rest Keane. Boro don't exactly have a counterpart to Keane, so Kleberson could fill in without a problem.
Hopefully we should have Dj2 back soon, with Cameroon out of the CAN now. Other than that, nothing on the injury front, and we can hopefully give players the rest they need. Now it should just be a matter of staying healthy and trying to plug holes in our defense. Boro always manage to be trouble for us. Here's to hoping we can get solid, 90-minute performance from our team.
I'd like to see this lineup: ------Saha-----Ruud------- -Giggs--Scholes--Kleberson--Ronaldo -Fortune--O'Shea--Silvestre---G. Neville ----------Howard---------------- I say we try to win this game by attacking. Don't get sucked into a defensive battle with Boro. We need to play to our strength, which is attack. We should win 3-1 or 4-1 with that lineup.
i would say boateng does that role (however i dont think he is playing), and going on last tuesday doriva can also do a good job, (he managed vieira pretty well), dunno about reasons why we have done well against you but we have always raised our game to play man u, just hope we can do it tommorow. As for ronaldo, i can see danny mills and franck queudrue will do a job on him, and hoping he wont dive to get either booked. Boro will also be without ugo, ricketts (no comments required ) and christie is still out
I second this lineup, although I'd be very surprised to see SAF put Scholesy and Kleb in the center of midfield because it might put more pressure on our fragile back four. If Keano isn't starting then he'll definitely put P. Neville or Nicky as defensive help. I would love to see the attacking lineup you mentioned. Perhaps Kleb could do well as a defensive center midfield role, who knows? I wouldn't mind Keano getting "rested" by putting him at center back and putting Wes on the bench.
rest him against Citeh????? I beg to differ... Ruud will cost Keegan his job. There is never any respite for City from United. If SAF rested Ruud for City and we lost, there would be an uproar around the world! City are United's biggest rivals in case anyone didn't know.
?????????????????? have you been to manchester m8? sorry, thats not fair~ as there isnt any manyoo fans in manchester... so have you been to the whole of england? your the first manyoo supporter that i've heard say this EVER!! leeds/pool sure, but not citeh? your surely takin the piss~
Sorry, but Liverpool have been our biggest rivals in general for a while now. I would put City second on that list.
I don't know, I think the Man. Utd-Man. City rivalry trumps the Liverpool-Man. Utd in terms of passion in Manchester. Liverpool have been the more formidable opponent for the last 30 years, but the Citeh-Utd game has 90 years of tradition behind it. Every derby game is hotly contested and never taken for granted no matter what the point standings of the opponents.
Sigh... another NFL analogy coming up... I'd have to equate it to the Packers-Bears-Vikings situation. Historically, the Packers-Bears rivalry is arguably the biggest (as well as longest-running) in the whole league, but in the last while, Packers-Vikings is the bigger, more heated rivalry because the Bears simply have not been competitive enough for quite a while now. And also, Minnesotans are the biggest a-holes with the worlds most annoying accent.. YAW, it's true, mhm, yaw. My God Fargo made that a laughing point!
I feel a top five coming on Biggest rivals for me; 1. Arsenal - need to stay current, tends to be the most important EPL game of the year 2. Liverpool - won everything in the 70's and 80's, our biggest rival from a historical perspective (and us supporters wot lived through those painfull years have it burned into our soul) 3. Leeds - geography, historical war, the O'Leary era, Cantona and again, those of us who have supported them for a while will remember when everyone supported Leeds in the 70's, also they cheated their manager 4. Blackburn Rovers - beat us to the EPL one season when managed by that git from Liverpool 5. Newcastle - Shearer should have become a red and needs constant reminding that he might have won something if he had, had a battle with them for the EPL a couple of times 6. Citeh - If you live or were born in the Manchester area this will be higher on your list, plus they stole Dennis Law and relegated us in the early 70's 7. Chelsea - recent money spending and they nearly looked capable a few seasons ago, plus they had a depressingly good record of beating us at Old Trafford Arsenal may be our biggest rivals, but if not Man U would rather they won the EPL than anyone else (esp. Liverpool). Doh! Can't count.
There are different types of rivalries guys... For instance, the biggest rivalry for fans of the area, is undoubtedly the one against Citeh. However, there is also a rivalry that the players find that extra bit of gas in the tank, to fight off tackles, save penalties and generally step up for. That rivalry is undoubtedly the one between Arsenal and us because we are the best three teams in the league (we are of course the best and second best team in the league at the same time with the gooners in 3rd). Also there is the rivalry that is fueled by history, one that older fans, coaches and older players will honor. These rivalries are often based on either pure hatred caused by one team's dominance over the other, or a highly competitive period in the past where both teams traded blows... this goes obviously to Liverpool... Here is an example of that rivalry, in 15 years, Munich fans will still remember our shock CL comeback and that will be a great rivalry... there is no way, that Leeds and Blackburn are better rivals than Citeh... no way, just no way, sorry sofa... I can see the logic in Arse, Castle and pool being ahead of City but not the others.
Eh? I think it's YOU who is takin the piss. You haven't a clue how we like to treat our bitter lying neighbors from the Moss Side. I'll give you a hint: for us to admit that a side that has won sweet FA in 27 (or 28?) years is a "rival" at all, is too much respect to give those jammy bastards. It's the whole reason we like to scoff at such a "Massive" club, with such "Massive" support, etc. Of course we want to beat them at all costs, and this makes them a team we relish beating more than most... but "rival"? Don't make me laugh.
Rivlries change Rivlires change according to the season and situation,,, right now we need to keep the Arse in our sights so we need these 3 points.. The Fa cup v. Citeh will be an emotional gane anyway but to me the league comes first, let's see how these one plays out.
According to Soccernet, here is our lineup: 14 Tim Howard 6 Wes Brown 25 Quinton Fortune 22 John O'Shea 27 Mikael Silvestre 8 Nicky Butt 11 Ryan Giggs 15 Jose Kleberson 18 Paul Scholes 9 Louis Saha 10 Ruud van Nistelrooy Subs: 13 Roy Carroll 3 Phil Neville 24 Darren Fletcher 7 Cristiano Ronaldo 21 Diego Forlan