Manchester United finish their stretch of three straight games against giant clubs by welcoming arch-rivals Liverpool to Old Trafford on Sunday. They lost the first (at home to Paris Saint-Germain to in the UEFA Champions League), won the second (at Chelsea FC in the FA Cup fifth round) and now prepare for the “rubber match” of sorts.
United will be very fired up for this one, for all the obvious and natural reasons, but also have the added motivation of trying to overturn (or at least erase memories of) the disastrous result of the reverse fixture. The 3-0 debacle marked the end of the Jose Mourinho era, and it was certainly deserved when you consider he dropped Paul Pogba, and instead played young and a bit inexperienced defender Diogo Dalot up front.
You can certainly assume that interim manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer won’t be doing that with his first team selection! Whether or not Solskjaer will have injured forwards Anthony Martial and Jesse Lingard available for selection remains to be seen. Both are healing much faster than expected, but this match might be a bit too soon yet.
The Bank MUFC Starting XI Prediction vs Liverpool FC (4-3-3)
Attack: Marcus Rashford, Romelu Lukaku, Juan Mata
Midfielders: Paul Pogba, Nemanja Matic, Ander Herrera
Defenders: Luke Shaw, Victor Lindelof, Chris Smalling, Ashley Young
Goalkeeper: David de Gea
Liverpool at Manchester United FC FYIs
Injury Report for both sides: go to this link
Kick-off: Sunday February 24, Old Trafford, 205 pm (BST), 805 am (CST)
Starting XI Predictions: United Liverpool
Odds via Betfair: Liverpool 13/10, Draw 5/2, United 2/1
Google Result Probability: Liverpool win 41%, Draw 27%, Manchester United win 32%
Manager Press conference videos: coming Friday
Prediction: United 1, Liverpool 1
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, regularly appears as a guest pundit on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
He also contributes sociopolitical essays to Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to his.