Manchester United v Newcastle United – Match preview.
Posted on August 15th, 2010 | 55 Comments |
The task couldn’t be anymore daunting to be honest as our record at Old Trafford is less than impressive, in fact the last time we managed a win there was in February 1972, before I was even born!
Most Newcastle fans are resigned to defeat before we even kick-off, which is not being negative and is more a positive reflection on just how illustrious our opponents are. Not many teams go to Manchester United and come away with anything, and that applies all the way through the league, from top to bottom, and whilst a point would be nice it will be the performance that most fans will be looking at.
Manchester United will be missing Rio Ferdinand, Owen Hargreaves and Anderson who all have knee injuries, but with the squad they have I very much doubt they will be missed too much.
Wayne Rooney will more than likely start the match as he looks to recapture the form from last season that appears to have deserted him, and given the fact that Rooney has scored ten goals against Newcastle in his career then there is probably no better team for him to try and do that against.
Moving on to Newcastle, Andy Carroll has been passed fit for the match at Old Trafford and should lead the line of attack for us, with Kevin Nolan more than likely playing in just behind him.
The rest of the team will pretty much pick itself at the moment as injuries to Steven Taylor, Danny Simpson, Leon Best and Dan Gosling combined with doubts over Alan Smith’s fitness and Sol Campbell’s belated pre-season training force our team selection. Bearing all that in mind I would guess the team will be:
Steve Harper; James Perch, Mike Williamson, Fabricio Coloccini, Jose Enrique; Wayne Routledge, Joey Barton, Danny Guthrie, Jonas Gutierrez; Kevin Nolan, Andy Carroll.
In our last match at Old Trafford we managed a rather creditable 1-1 draw, although that positive start soon got left behind and we were unfortunately relegated at the end of that campaign.
Another 1-1 would be nice, although the stats suggest that we will more than likely suffer a defeat. Manchester United have won 12 of the last 15 games between the two sides whilst Newcastle have only managed to score 9 goals in their last 16 league visits to Old Trafford. Neither stat is very impressive from a Newcastle perspective in fairness.
Newcastle have had some proper hammerings off Manchester United over the years including a 6-0 loss not so long back. Whilst I don’t think we will lose that heavily on Monday I do believe, unfortunately, that we will get beat.
My prediction: Man Utd 3-0 Newcastle.
Howay the lads!
Date – Monday, 16th August, 2010.
Time – 8:00pm.
Venue – Old Trafford, Manchester.
Referee – Chris Foy.
Chin up toonsy ;)