The defence should be fairly obvious for tonight’s match, with Van der Sar, O’Shea, Rio, Vidic and Evra all expected to start, but it is a lot trickier to predict what the rest of our team will look like.
In the away leg, Dimitar Berbatov played as a lone striker, with Cristiano Ronaldo and Park Ji-Sung feeding him, whilst Carrick, Giggs and and Fletcher held up the midfield. Whilst this was a fairly safe team for playing away in Italy, I’d expect to see something far more cutting edge at Old Trafford. Berbatov just didn’t get the ball enough in the San Siro so that won’t be good enough for the home leg.
I think Ronaldo and Park on the wings would be a safe bet, with Carrick and Scholes my preferred central midfielders. This would leave Rooney up front sitting just behind Berbatov. This is not my predicted line-up though, as it’s fairly impossible to predict such a thing these days. Ferguson likes playing Fletcher in the big games and he sees Giggs’ experience as valuable. Giggs and Scholes were rested at the weekend against Fulham, so maybe this gives us some indication over who will be playing? Would he sacrifice Carrick and Scholes for Fletcher and Giggs like he did against Chelsea? Who knows!
Having Tevez on the bench means we could have a third striker on the pitch, if it was needed, and I’d also like the option of Nani, who seems to have fallen out of favour recently. Anderson started looking more like his old self against Fulham, although I’m still not entirely sure what’s happened to him this season! At the very least, we know he will come on in the case of a penalty shoot out!
Who would you pick?
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