.png)
1 day ago
12
Key events Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature
Sky have Tim Sherwood and Jamie Redknapp in the studio. Neither has yet referenced hapax legomenon.
Fletcher says he’s happy with how training has gone and looking forward to the game. They’ve set the team up in a way which suits their style and personalities, and he trusts them to play well. Tactics are fluid, he says – you want rotations and so on– but you also have to give players the chance to work thinks out for themselves and he trusts them express themselves and do it if they see it.
Oh, and Fletcher also reveals his favourite twin, picking Jack but not Fletcher.
Fletcher, meanwhile, changes one player – Bruno Fernandes returns in place of Leny Yoro – and a formation, moving from the 3-4-2-1 only Amorim understood, to 4-2-3-1. He also has Mount and Mainoo available, both of whom are on the bench.
Burnley make three changes following their defeat at Brighton: out go Ekdal, Larsen and Anthony and in come Esteve, Hannibal and Edwards. By the looks of things, Parker sticks with the 3-4-3 that has brought him just as much success as the 4-2-3-1.
Teams!
Burnley (3-4-3): Dubravka; Humphreys, Esteve, Laurent; Walker, Florentino, Ugochukwu, Pires; Edwards, Broja, Hannibal. Subs: Weir, Hartman, Bruun Larsen, Foster, Anthony, Tchaouna, Ekdal, Sonne, Barnes
Manchester United (4-2-3-1): Lammens; Dalot, Heaven, Martinez, Shaw; Ugarte, Casemiro; Dorgu, Fernandes, Cunha; Sesko. Subs: Bayindir, Maguire, Mainoo, Mount, Malacia, Yoro, J Fletcher, Lacey, Zirkzee.
Referee: Stuart Atwell (Nuneaton)
Preamble
Ruben Amorim was, by any metric, an absolute disaster at Old Trafford. In the Premier-League era, no United manager has achieved fewer points per game, nor a finish as low as 15th-place; looking further back, no United manager since Frank O’Farrell, in 1972, lost as high a percentage of games; and every other United manager in history avoided the eternal stain of losing a cup final to Tottenham Hotspur, never mind Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham Hotspur.
Life, though, is rarely as simple as mate, your precious 3-4-2-1 is a piece of nonsense, and Amorim leaves United in a state far better than the one in which he found them. After Brighton were beaten earlier in the season, Danny Welbeck reported teammates lauding the best opponent they’d faced in a while, while the football played in the 4-4 draw with Bournemouth was both promising and exhilarating. And, though it’s impossible to argue against the sacking – even if its trigger was criticising bosses with even more miserable track records – Amorim was ultimately stymied by bad luck. Had the absences of key players not coincided with injuries to key players, he’d still be in a job – perhaps even thriving.
As such, Darren Fletcher inherits a reasonable state of affairs. Mason Mount, Bruno Fernandes and Kobbie Mainoo are fit again, while Amad Diallo and Bryan Mbeumo will soon be back from Afcon; merely sensible husbandry of a talented squad should be enough to secure a fifth-place finish and with it a European spot for next season, most likely in the Champions League.
Burnley, though, will not make things easy. Though they’ve only 12 points, having lost three of their last five, performances have been better than results and Scott E. Parker will have his side revved up to get after opponents likely to be fielding an XI that’s never played together, set up in a formation denied it for over a year. However things go, this is, without doubt, the match of the night.
Kick-off: 8.15pm GMT
