From whence did this fixture come from? It’s not in my diary. Anyhow, it appears to be on Sky so I’m happy. A team in the relegation zone, playing poorly, easy three points ? That didn’t work out too well Saturday.
I’ve given up trying to work out the midfield team selections. It’ll be two from Scholes, Anderson, Carrick, Hargreaves or Fletcher in the middle. The trouble is that they don’t play enough together to get to know one another. Oddly enough Scholes come back hasn’t helped too much as it just means more rotation.
Up front, I expect Rooney and Ronaldo will play despite Liverpool coming up at the weekend. Maybe if the job is done by 60 minutes, they’ll come off but I think that Fergie knows that you don’t mess with the important bits of the team at the business end of the season.
Speaking of important parts, we certainly missed Ferdinand on Saturday, and I hope he is fit for this game, if not it is vital both Ferdinand and Vidic played against Torres on Saturday.
The goalkeeper position got very interesting as a result of the Portsmouth cup defeat. Presumably, Foster did well enough to keep his place as van der Sar is still injured. If he performs really well, should he be dropped for the Liverpool game?
From a Bolton point of view, they need points badly, but I just can’t see them getting goals. They must hope for a clean sheet and try to steal one at the other end. Selling Anelka was a really bad move and unless another team does even worse (I’m looking at Newcastle here) they’ll be going down as Fulham are starting to pick up some points as well.
Prediction: 2-0 with Ronaldo getting 1 (but missing 32) and a Gary Cahill own goal
Image Fulham on the attack, by d.nuttall
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Ronaldo rescues United from their own poor finishing, but it was debut boy Ben Foster’s saves that meant that Ronaldo was able to get all three points for United.
If ever there was a team to play when your first choice keeper was injured, your reserve keeper was suspended and your third choice keeper had played one game in the last year it would be Derby County.