United On Fire

Chelsea got through their visit to Goodison Park, so the plan still stands. Beat Blackburn in the late kick off Saturday and then go to Stanford Bridge, win and win the league. I’ve got a feeling we’ll sneak this game away to Blackburn, they’ve been fading a bit.

Vidic and Nani return from injury and I expect Vidic to start and Nani to be on the bench, of even replace Park in the starting line-up.  Scholes has been a bit off the pace and for a strong physical game against Mark Hughes’s team, I’d like to see Hargreaves, Carrick and Anderson add fire to the midfield.  Scholes and Giggs can come off the bench to help it if we need it, but can no longer be seen as first choice.

Let’s go for it from the off, and don’t have a poor first half like we did against Arsenal.

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Nearly a whole year ago, United were coming of the back of a splendid 4 goal win in the league and waiting to face Roma in the Quarter Final of the Champions League. That game finished 2-1 to Roma but it didn’t matter because in the return leg, United put on one of their best ever European performances and slaughtered them 7-1.

What is the difference between now and then? Well, firstly Blackburn, whilst conceding as many goals as Aston Villa, put up a really hard fight and it wasn’t until the 61st minute that Paul Scholes scored an equalizer to turn the game. The Villa game, conditions aside, was a stroll in the park by comparison. Secondly, Totti will be missing for Roma, and he is their main player. Finally, Nmanja Vidic dislocated his shoulder in the Blackburn match which had major repercussions later in the season, with tiredness being the cause of the sem-final loss and only just bringing home the title.

I think the result will be different tomorrow night, the team are in a much stronger place, and one striker aside could not be stronger squad wise. With this in mind, I think we are well placed for the Champions League as well as the Premier League.

The only thing I’m not sure about is whether the dreadful scenes in the crowd will be repeated. I hope not.

I will, hopefully, be Live Blogging again for the game (see the Bolton one I did) so come back from 19:45 to see what I think of the events as they happen.

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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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