Up next for Manchester United is a UEFA Champions League group stage clash that sees them make the trip to Istanbul Basaksehir on Wednesday night. This match is sandwiched in between yesterday’s disaster at home against Arsenal, and an away date with Everton next weekend.
For whatever reason, United is just awful at home this season, and pretty dominant on the road. It doesn’t make sense, but Ole Gunnar Solskjaer needs to figure it out, and fix it.
Manchester United at Istanbul Basaksehir FYIs
Kickoff: November 4, 17:55 GMT, Istanbul
United Starting XI Prediction: go here
“When you have played well you think you can take your foot off the pedal but that is not how it works because this was a big game against a good team and you have to be absolutely spot on with everything,: Solskjaer said of losing this past weekend’s headliner fixture in an interview with the BBC.
“We were too sloppy, too many passes went astray and the rotation was not there. Too many things that can go wrong in a game did for us today. Today we didn’t get the response we hopes for.”
“That’s football for you. It goes up and down. We didn’t turn up, especially in the first half. That’s what we have to address because we know these boys can be so good.
“We knew that this was the big game this week. And unfortunately in the first half we didn’t play well enough. Second half, we played better, we never seemed to have to defend too much. But when we did have to, we were too slow and gave away the penalty.”
United have only taken a single point from their first four Premier League home contests. That’s bad for any club, but for United, it’s historically atrocious.
Team News
For United, left back Alex Telles is still in isolation, after having tested positive for COVID-19. Central defender Eric Bailly is out until after the international break while position mate Phil Jones won’t be back until December.
Jesse Lingard remains out as well.
Switching to the hosts, one of only three sides yet to score in the UCL competition this season, Nacer Chadli is an injury doubt, as is Azubuike Okechukwu.
Prediction: United 2, Istanbul 0
Even with some squad rotation here, United will still have the much stronger side, and they should claim the first ever meeting between these two sides.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, 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,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Tribune and SB Nation. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.