Squad to face Marseille

The squad that flew out to face Marseille has been revealed. Have you seen it? The French champions must be licking their chops…

Squad:Van der Sar, Kuszczak, Lindegaard; Vidic, O’Shea, Brown, Rafael, Fabio, Evra, Smalling; Scholes, Gibson, Nani, Carrick, Fletcher, Bebe, Obertan, Tunnicliffe; Rooney, Berbatov, Hernandez, King.

We are without Rio at the back which is a massive loss for a big night like this. One assumes that Smalling will be the first choice to step in alongside Vidic as the duo have performed admirably when partnered together this season.

Without Giggs, Ando or Park, we have 4 midfielders in the squad that I would really trust for an occasion like this: Scholes, Nani, Carrick and Fletcher. The question is, who’s going to play out left. If we move Nani over there, it looks like Fletcher gets the call out right and from what we’ve seen this season, Fletcher on the right gives us no width whatsoever. Alternatively, we could play Nani out right, stick Fletch, Scholes and Carrick in the middle, and have Rooney take up the left midfield position. It wouldn’t be completely foreign to him and it would also allow him more room/time on the ball to cut inside. Of course, that leaves Berba isolated up front which isn’t always ideal.

Another option is to use JOS either as another body in midfield and stick Fletch on the right, or go bold and stick JOS at rightback and play Rafael as a right winger/midfielder. If I were a betting man, my money is on a conservative 5 man midfield so we don’t get overrun and do just enough to get out with a draw or at least, an away goal scored….

Because as we know, we’ve got a pretty dang good record at OT. (note the difference between a good record vs a good performance ie. game vs Crawley)

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Category: Manchester United, match preview