As Manchester United head to Kazakhstan to take on FC Astana in UEFA Europa League group stage action on Thursday night, their business has pretty much been taken care of at this point in the competition. It’s inevitable that they’ll get through to the knockout round, so United will thus give a lot of their kids a hard look in this one.
You have 14 teenagers in the 18-man traveling squad, and there is a possibility that up to 10 players could make their senior team debuts in this match. The traveling party includes a phenomenal and uplifting story in 19-year-old Max Taylor, who just a year ago was still undergoing chemotherapy treatment for testicular cancer.
Dylan Levitt and Ethan Laird are among the youngsters called up for the match who could make a starting XI appearance, with Teden Mengi, DiShon Bernard, Largie Ramazani, Ethan Galbraith, Arnau Puigmal, Matej Kovar and D’Mani Bughail-Mellor also named to the team.
Expect to see a lot of experienced youth up top and in the upper middle, with a lot of inexperienced youth in the lower middle and back. The demoted Jesse Lingard and the convalescing Luke Shaw are the only real senior players you’ll see in this team Thursday night.
Manchester United Starting XI Prediction versus FC Astana (UEL) (4-2-3-1)
Greenwood
Chong Gomes Lingard
Garner Levitt
Shaw Taylor Tuanzebe Laird
Grant
Manchester United vs FC Astana UEFA Europa League FYIs
Kickoff: Thursday Nov 28, 350 pm
TV: BT Sport2
Prediction: United 1, FC Astana 0
United have kept a clean sheet the entire time in this competition. Facing a much weaker side, don’t expect that to change.
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.
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