It’s an extremely quick turnaround for Manchester United as they host A.F.C. Bournemouth tomorrow night, about 72 hours after their 2-1 loss in the most hyped up Manchester Derby ever. If there is to be a Premier League title race this season, then United have absolutely no margin for error, and they have to hope that City starts dropping some points with regularity.
The march begins with the 14th place Cherries coming to town, so how might United manager Jose Mourinho line ’em up?
Let’s take a look, at our 4-2-3-1 predicted formation:
Zlatan Ibrahimovic
Marcus Rashford Juan Mata Anthony Martial
Ander Herrera Nemanja Matic
Ashley Young Victor Lindelof Chris Smalling Antonio Valencia
David de Gea
Yes, we dropped Lukaku, and inserted Ibrahimovic instead. Lukaku was a no show yet again versus a top six opponent, and thus the subject of United fan scorn on Sunday. Of course, Lukaku thrives in games like this, against lesser competition, so maybe dropping him would be counter-intuitive? Or perhaps it’s just time to give Ibra his full 90 minutes.
Odds: United 2/7, Bournemouth 10/1, draw 9/2
Prediction: United 2, Bournemouth 0
As always, feel free to post your own MUFC starting XI and match score predictions in the comments section below.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
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