Manchester United at Club Brugge on Thursday is a match-up of two sides that took very different routes to reach this UEL knockout round clash. The Red Devils fielded 32 different players in the UEL group stages, more than any other team. It worked out though as they won group L with ease.
As for Club Brugge, they are nine points ahead of their nearest rival in the Belgian top flight, but find themselves relegated to the Europa League after having failed to survive a tough Champions League grouping that included Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid and Galatasaray.
You can expect United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to do some heavy squad rotation here and probably give late January transfer window addition Odion Ighalo his first start in a United shirt here. The deadline day loan signing came on very late against Chelsea on Monday.
Manchester United Starting XI Prediction at Club Brugge UEL Round of 32 Leg 1/2 FYIs
Ighalo
James Fernandes Greenwood
Mata Matic
Williams Maguire Bailly Dalot
Romero
Manchester United at Club Brugge UEL Round of 32 Leg 1/2 FYIs
February 20, 5:55 pm, Jan Breydel Stadium
United starting XI prediction: go to this link
TV: BT Sport 2
Referee: Aleksei Kulbakov
Prediction: Manchester United 2, Club Brugge 1
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
You can follow Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com on Twitter here and his cat on Instagram at this link