Riddled with injuries so I don't think the team is too difficult to predict:
de Gea
Rafael Smalling Vidic Evra
Carrick Cleverley
Valencia Kagawa Januzaj
Welbeck
--
Lindegaard; Buttner; Anderson, Fletcher, Giggs, Zaha; Hernandez
Assuming Rooney, van Persie, Evans, Ferdinand, Nani, Young, and Jones are not fit. I think the only ones who have a chance from that list are Evans and Jones, who will probably play if fit as Jones will do a better job than Cleverley, and Evans is better at passing the ball than Smalling and Vidic, which is going to be important against Swansea obviously.
Like most of us, I would rather see Valencia and Cleverley omitted from the side, but looking at the potential match day squad, I think they're going to have to play. If Jones and Evans are fit, then I'd love to see us play something more like this today:
de Gea
Rafael Vidic Evans Evra
Jones Carrick Anderson
Januzaj Kagawa
Welbeck
I don't think we're going to see it though, possibly never. Moyes just doesn't seem to be able to play a different formation. All of his tactics and formations seem to involve playing the same way all the time and hoping it works, or on the odd occasion, putting Valencia at Right Back. Everything is always a like-for-like change, there is a lack of ambition to get results IMO. The last game against Swansea and the game against Sunderland are prime examples:
Swansea FAC: Januzaj replaces Valencia. Fair change, but in the end, it's like-for-like as he goes and stands on the right wing, obviously instructed to do so. Fabio replaces Ferdinand through injury. We all wanted to see Fabio play, but it's a change to stay in the same shape even though we're a man down and drawing the game. The game plan seems to be hold out for a draw and get a replay... Why not just throw Fletcher to Right Back in the first place and get another midfield player on? What's more, is that we're down to 10-men and having to work that much harder, yet Moyes opts to not make the third change. I don't understand this, especially in injury time when you are a goal down and have Giggs and Zaha on the bench who might offer something.
Sunderland COC: Another defensive injury, another like-for-like change. This one is probably fair enough again, but we could argue that when you're not winning the game you should take more of a gamble to get a second goal, this requirement for a Manchester United manager was again not met. We are losing the game, so Moyes replaces Cleverley with Darren Fletcher. I don't care how anyone puts this, but it is a defensive change when we are losing. He then proceeds to leave it until the 87th minute to bring on Hernandez, who even out of form, is our most potent goal threat in the squad at the moment. For once, he did not have an out-and-out winger in the side, which could be a positive, but when it was for a grand total of 8 minutes it might as well not have happened.
This shit happens time and time again and we lose. Do more than make changes without changing the shape and formation, and show more ambition to get results. Sticking with the same strategy is clearly not working, we are not simply being unlucky every single time. It's just not good enough.
Regardless of all that, despite the injuries right now which are bad, I feel alright about today and think we'll win 2-0.
He's good but he might struggle if he's not in the 16!!
