Club football returns this weekend with Manchester United providing the tea-time fixture this evening away to Bolton Wanderers at the Reebok stadium.
The Reebok has notoriously been a tricky ground for United but more often than not, especially recently, we seem to get the job done.
Its the physicality of the opposition that has usually caused us problems and what better time for them to use that weapon than now. I mean the last place David De Gea wanted to re-start his career so far is the Reebok. You can be sure that Kevin Davies will not need a team talk to know that he has the job of getting under DDG for the whole 90 minutes. The media is rife with reports that Fergie is set to drop him for Anders Lindegaard who is more built for the occasion but knowing Sir Alex, I doubt it because a good show at one of the most hostile venues of the EPL would earn the young Spaniard a load of confidence.
United have been lucky not to have any new injuries after the International break. That is just about as big a bonus as you can get because for most of the team, it was more or less a holiday. We have a bulk of players that did not represent their countries so you feel that the manager will finally get to utilise his entire squad for the next busy schedule of fixtures. After Bolton, we've got Benfica away in Europe and then Chelsea in the league on Sunday. That means in all probability, the young team that has so far given no reason to be dropped will take some major breaking up to accommodate experience.
Speaking of experience, now would be a good time to have Vidic in our team but at least we've got Rio available for today. However, the manager pointed out yesterday that he will not drop the team that has got us to the top of the league and rightly so because they've not given him reason to. The one exception should be Danny Welbeck who might not be ready for today and will, in all likelihood, be replaced by Javier Hernandez. The manager does have Cleverley fit again but now with the added headache of selecting either Carrick or Fletcher ahead of Anderson and Clev. Antonio Valencia is in the squad for Bolton so Nani possibly won't last the '90 today. Park and Giggs might be saved for the Champions League and or for Chelsea.
At the end of the day we seem to have the right blend of players to pull us through just about any fixture. It's always going to be a case of whether the manager got his selection right at the end of the day.
Last season we dropped two points in this fixture in a run of games that hardly saw us win away from home. This season the target is to improve our away form whilst maintaining our home form. Three points today, will go a long way in showing that we mean business this time away from home.
So, COME ON UNITED!Labels: PREVIEWS
