Manchester United return to St. John’s Stadium, scene of one of their worst results this season, as they fell 2-1 to Huddersfield Town back in October. This will be the third meeting between United and Huddersfield this season and second of this month. United bested the Terriers 2-0 on February 3.
United will be sans Eric Bailly, Marouane Fellaini, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Ander Herrera, with Marcus Rashford a doubt. The young striker may return in time, and if so this would be a natural situation for him to make the first team. Since that’s up in the air for now, we left Romelu Lukaku in our predicted starting XI.
Look for United manager Jose Mourinho to try and strike a balance- fielding a strong enough team to advance in this competition, but also making sure keeping his stars fresh for Sevilla. United have won 21 of the previous 47 meetings with Huddersfield across all competitions. The series has also seen 11 Terriers wins and 15 draws. Although the clubs will now meet for the third time this term, they had not met since 1972, prior to this season.
Huddersfield comes into the FA Cup battle 17th in the Premier League table, the very last safety slot. They have a 27 points go along with their 27 league competitions this season.
Without further ado, here is the Man United Starting XI prediction:
Romelu Lukaku
Anthony Martial Juan Mata Jesse Lingard
Nemanja Matic Scott McTominay
Luke Shaw Chris Smalling Phil Jones Matteo Darmian
Sergio Romero
Injury report for both teams: go to this link
Jose Mourinho press conference video: go to this link
Odds via bwin: Huddersfield 7/1, Draw 333/100, Manchester United 11/25
Prediction: United 3, Huddersfield Town 0
As always, feel free to post your own Man United and/or Huddersfield starting XI prediction, as well as your forecast for the final score.
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 corporation blogging community Chicago Now.
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