Manchester United vs Everton: Red Devils look to build on UCL win
Manchester United will be seeking to put their shaky patch behind them as they take on Everton on Saturday. The Red Devils come into this having edged out Villarreal 2-1 in a thrilling encounter that saw Cristiano Ronaldo steal the headlines with his match-winning goal. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s surely breathing a sigh of relief as prior to that win, Manchester United had lost back to back games at Old Trafford and were desperate to avoid a third straight loss in front of their home fans.
Well, there is a reason why many people have said that the Champions League is Cristiano Ronaldo’s tournament, and the 36-year-old Portuguese ace showed exactly why the stage is his and added one more goal to his already massive haul in that competition. Now, Manchester United will turn their attention towards facing Everton, a team who haven’t won at Old Trafford since 1992. That was in the Toffees’ very first away game, in August 1992; since then, they’ve won just one of their last 28 trips to this ground, while losing 20 and drawing seven. In addition, Manchester United have lost just one of their last 12 meetings with Everton, a 4-0 defeat at Goodison Park in April 2019, but they haven’t been able to keep a clean sheet in any of their last eight home Premier League games.
Making things tricky for the hosts is their absentee list. While they’ve been given a boost with the return of Marcus Rashford to training after his long injury lay-off following shoulder surgery, Solskjaer will have to make do without skipper Harry Maguire and fellow defender Luke Shaw. Maguire’s absence is an especially big blow due to his influence in organizing the defense, and given that United have struggled to keep clean sheets all season, that will naturally be something Everton will look to exploit in order to potentially overcome their Old Trafford hoodoo.
Everton, however, do have quite a few players out injured. In addition to missing Richarlison (knee), Andre Gomes (calf) and Fabian Delph (shoulder), Rafa Benitez will need to figure out how to form his starting XI without the services of Dominic Calvert-Lewin and captain Seamus Coleman, meaning that both sides will be missing their first choice skippers for this game.
All eyes will be on Manchester United, then, to see whether their midweek UCL win will be the boost they need in order to recover following losses to West Ham and Aston Villa recently. With things congested in the table – although they’re in fourth, United are just one point behind league leaders Liverpool – it indeed will be very interesting to see if the Red Devils can reassume top spot in the table before the latest international break gets underway.
