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Manchester United tackle Chelsea at Outdated Trafford this afternoon in Ruud van Nistelrooy’s second recreation in cost as interim supervisor.
The Pink Devils are mendacity in thirteenth place within the league however a win may see them climb to the highest half of the desk and, extremely, to inside simply 4 factors of a high 4 spot.
A win for the Blues may see them climb as much as third as their revival below Enzo Maresca continues.
How will Van Nistelrooy strategy the sport?
How Van Nistelrooy will line up and strategy the sport can be of nice curiosity to the United devoted. Within the Carabao Cup in opposition to a much-rotated Leicester within the week, he performed with a daring 4-4-2 formation, however will he be so attack-minded in an important Premier League recreation in opposition to such in type opposition?
It’s actually what most followers need to see after over a yr of “chaos ball” below Erik ten Hag, the place the staff focussed on transitions slightly than possession and freedom of expression.
If as anticipated the boss sticks with a midfield pivot of Ugarte and Casemiro, there ought to be loads of cowl for the defence, permitting United’s ahead gamers way more freedom than they loved below Ten Hag.
Nevertheless, as may very well be seen in opposition to the Foxes in midweek, United stay defensively weak, so it stays to be seen how a lot encouragement can be given for the total backs to affix the assault and the way a lot self-discipline the wingers are anticipated to train in serving to out defensively.
Hojlund or Zirkzee?
Van Nistelrooy selected to begin with Josh Zirkzee up entrance alongside Bruno Fernandes on Wednesday and United scored 5. The experiment actually labored for Fernandes, who scored two of these and appeared again to his imperious finest, however Zirkzee appeared like a fish out of water. He managed two pictures – one on the right track and one off – however his link-up play was poor, managing solely 70% cross accuracy, misplaced 100% of his duels and made no crosses or lengthy balls (stats from sofascore.com).
However 5 objectives – if it aint broke, don’t repair it? Proper? Or, if Hojlund replaces him, it will likely be very fascinating to see how this impacts the construct up play. As a standard centre ahead, he was starved of service below Ten Hag’s system but when Van Nistelrooy can discover a repair for that situation, we may lastly begin to see what the younger Dane is able to.
Getting the perfect out of Rashford and Amad
Two gamers who clearly weren’t having fun with life below Ten Hag had been wingers Marcus Rashford and Amad. At the beginning of the season, the previous supervisor was rotating each with Alejandro Garnacho and Amad appeared to be thriving, successful the participant of the month award for August. However then after maybe one mediocre, however not dreadful recreation from the Ivorian, Ten Hag appeared to lose religion and caught religiously with Rashford and Garnacho, condemning Amad to a bench function. At one level simply earlier than his dismissal, the Dutchman even appeared to advertise Antony forward of Amad within the pecking order.
Rashford performed on the precise wing on Wednesday, which is clearly not his favoured facet, and appeared unimpressed when subbed for Amad within the second half. The Ivorian, against this, appeared to impress and was very vigorous in his half-hour.
We have now heard so much about Van Nistelrooy’s work with Rashford to get him again to his finest so all eyes can be on whether or not he tweaks the system from Wednesday – maybe at the side of Hojlund’s reinstatement as talked about above – or whether or not he offers Amad an opportunity to point out the England man the way it’s finished.
Kick off at Outdated Trafford this afternoon is at 4.30pm GMT.
Featured picture Michael Regan by way of Getty Photos
