HUGHTON'S NOTES
Chris Hughton's regular assessment of our forthcoming opponents - next up, champions Manchester United at Old Trafford on Sunday.
THE big blow for United is the loss of both Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo but anyone who watched the derby against City last weekend will know that they certainly had enough possession.
They will generally go with a 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1 and I wouldn’t expect them to be much different to how they lined-up against City.
At the back it will be Wes Brown at right-back and Patrice Evra at left-back, he’s done really well and is making progress, an attacking full-back and something they enjoy up there as he tries to get involved going forward and creating opportunities. Centrally it’s Rio Ferdinand and Vidic.
How they’ll go across midfield I’m not so sure but players we can expect in there include Michael Carrick, a player we all know here, a real class act. They have options in the wider areas with Ryan Giggs, Nani, as good options as there are around. Owen Hargreaves came into the side at City, he's still finding his feet but a quality player and then it’s about what’s available up front.
Paul Scholes is a wonderful player who can play off the front from midfield and a player who can create problems for you as soon as he’s on the ball. Carlos Tevez is there now but they’ve had problems with Ole-Gunnar Solskjear and Luis Saha not being available and now Rooney and Ronaldo both out.
They are a very good team at Old Trafford, they don’t lose many there and any game that looks where they might not get the right result, they always look capable of scoring. It's a very difficult game for us but at a stadium everyone enjoys going to and we’ve performed well there in recent seasons. We’re on the back of a good win against Derby and we have to go there in confident mood.
The teams who are successful at Old Trafford tend to play it in their own way but if that’s going up there and trying to out-football them it's a tough task because of the amount of quality passers they have in the side. You have to restrict them to minimal chances and take your own chances yourself. Not many teams will go there, have one chance, score and defend it for the rest of the 90 minutes.
You need to have enough of the ball because there is always the fear with United if they have a lot of the ball, at some point they will break you down.
We had two very good chances last season and that’s the key, no side will go there and have a lot of chances and you have to take the ones you create.
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