Manchester United host Stoke City Monday night in a match where they will be heavily favored, and deservedly so. The Red Devils come in well rested, having nine days off from their last match. They’re also second place in the Premier League table, while the Potters are down in the drop zone, sitting in 18th place.
During the extended interval in between games, United were able to get away to Dubai for some warm weather training. The business trip was a success for the team . Paul Pogba and Jesse Lingard even had the opportunity to feed a white tiger cub, from the bottle.
Now that’s living life right, and experiencing the United Arab Emirates capital in style.
Said Mourinho in regards to the Dubai trip: “It was very good. The facilities were unbelievable. The prince’s private facilities are better than any football club in the world. Unbelievable conditions to work, nice weather, three days of really, really good training. We developed things – people can think it’s good to rest, but not really.
“We developed things that we cannot develop when we have no time to train together. So hopefully we can improve our level because I really think it was good. We are all happy, we are lucky to play on Monday, which gave us this extra day to get back and, tomorrow, we are here again.”
Without further ado, here is our Man United starting XI prediction (4-2-3-1)
Romelu Lukaku
Anthony Martial Jesse Lingard Marcus Rashford
Nemanja Matic Paul Pogba
Luke Shaw Phil Jones Chris Smalling Antonio Valencia
David de Gea
MUFC Injury Report: go to this link
Odds: Stoke City– 19/4, Man Utd- 1/5, Draw- 14/1
Prediction: United 3, Stoke City 0
As always, feel free to post your own Man United and/or Stoke 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 company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
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