Manchester United kickoff against West Bromwich Albion Saturday at 3pm local. The lineup that Manager Jose Mourinho puts out there could be a makeshift unit. The Red Devils are suffering from a depleted depth chart as they have a couple players suspended, and a bit of an injury crisis on their hands.
They will be without five key players when they take the pitch at Old Trafford (Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Ander Herrera, Paul Pogba, Chris Smalling and Phil Jones). You can watch the Jose Mourinho press conference today with much more on that.
And thus, here’s the lineup prediction that we’re going with:
Marcus Rashford
Anthony Martial Henrikh Mkhitaryan Jesse Lingard
Marouane Fellaini Michael Carrick
Daley Blind Marcos Rojo Eric Bailly Antonio Valencia
David De Gea
Match Odds:
United- 3/10 Draw- 4/1 West Bromwich Albion 10/1 (via Paddy Power)
Prediction: Manchester United 1, West Brom 0
While United miss their two suspended stars, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Ander Herrera, as well all their injured players a lot, but they still have enough to grind out a result, especially at home. Fifth place United need to find a way to get all three points from this fixture in order to stay in the top four race, and I believe they will get it done.
Even if requires a hyper-pragmatic, perhaps even ugly approach in this one.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times and NBC Chicago.com, contributes to Chicago Tribune.com, Bold, WGN CLTV and KOZN.
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