Manchester United take on Pompey tonight, in a disappointingly timed match. Why are we playing at 8pm on Bank Holiday Monday? The temptations of an all-day session in the local are almost certainly too much to resist!
After having a laugh with the bluenoses yesterday, comparing the ‘doubles’ our teams achieved last season, the pressure is on for United to do the business today. Will they though? To be honest, I’m not overly hopeful.
There is a lot of pressure to have a good start to the season, and with Liverpool and Chelsea both winning their opening two games, we’ve already fallen 5 points behind ahead of tonight’s match.
“We had a terribly slow start last season,” Ferguson said. “Hopefully it’s not as bad this time. But they’re not going to give any medals out in August or September. Everybody wishes are that you win every game and it doesn’t happen, and everybody wishes that you don’t get injuries, but it happens.”
United are without several key players for various reasons, whilst Pompey have a fully fit squad to work with. Fratton Park has been a difficult place for us over the past few years and following our sluggish performance against Newcastle I am rather apprehensive.
RedRants are a lot more optimistic than I am though, predicting a 2-1 win to United, looking at the importance of the Rooney-Tevez partnership, whilst Pompey fancy themselves to get the draw.
Sky Sports reckons this will be our starting team: Van der Sar, Brown, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra, Fletcher, O’Shea, Scholes, Giggs, Rooney, Tevez, however I hope Rodrigo Possebon is thrown in to the mix.
Tonight match against Portsmouth will be a very difficult match. Over the past few years, Fratton Park has been a difficult place for us. With several of our key player are still out, maybe if we can avoid defeat, it could be good enough????
I’ve heard that SAF warned our players to try to get a win tonight before a nearly 3 weeks break. Of course, if we can manage to do that, it would be great as after the break we will have 2 very tough away matches against Liverpool and Chelsea respectively. And of course, In comparison to those 2 matches, tonight match will be much easier.
However, the fact is we are in a difficult situation. Key players in midfield like Hargreves and Carrick are out injured. Anderson is not expected to play. Nani still out because of the red card he picked up last season. And of course, our mighty Ronaldo still have to wait for at least 8 more weeks. So, based on the troops that we’ve got…. considering that we have to play away game…. against a nearly full strength Pompey…. the only thing I can say is let’s hope…. the Red Devil will show our real quality tonight…