Looking in detail at Man U away games, and the team for this afternoon

By Tony Attwood

In the table below, which I have introduced here for the first time (since I only just thought of it), I have taken today’s opposition’s last six away games and in each case recorded the position of the two teams in the league at the end of the day before the match. So in the first row, we have Tottenham at home to ManU and the league placement before the game started was sixth against eighth. The game ended in a draw.

But it turns out the position of the team ManU is facing isn’t always a dominant factor since at the time of facing Palace away, ManU were six places below them but Palace lost 1-2.

As we would expect in the next away game, they beat beleaguered Wolverhampton, which was as form predicted. And so was the Villa game – the third-placed team beat the 7th placed team. But the draws in their last two away games suggest that no matter how naff the home team is, ManU can have problems

Date	Teams	Res	Score	Lge place of teams
08 Nov	Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester U	D	2-2	6th v 8th
30 Nov	Crystal Palace v Manchester United	W	1-2	6th v 12th
08 Dec	Wolverhampton v Manchester U	W	1-4	20th v 12th
21 Dec	Aston Villa v Manchester United	L	2-1	3rd v 7th
04 Jan	Leeds United v Manchester U	D	1-1	16th v 6th
07 Jan	Burnley v Manchester United	D	2-2	19th v 6th

So we might say that based on home and away form ManU can swing a surprise ass they did at Palace, but normally, form is a moderately good indicator. It doesn’t help us get the exact results, but it gives a clue. But not enough to help us win the pools, so we will stick with writing, I guess.

If we now look at Arsenal at home with Manu away, we can see that Arsenal do have the advantage of having played one more, but that hardly accounts for a variation in the goal difference of 22 goals or a points difference of 16

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Arsenal home	10	9	1	0	26	5	21	28
9	Manchester United away	9	3	3	3	15	16	-1	12

Nor indeed the last six games in which Arsenal have managed to pick up 14 points while ManU have got nine from two wins and three draws.

So what about the team?

The Premier League injury table shows Arsenal in 18th place with just three men down (West Ham and Wolverhampton both having just two men injured, thus proving that the number of injuries perhaps doesn’t mean that much after all!) Manchester United are also rejecting the concept of injuries, it seems, with just three men out. Top of the table are a range of clubs with eight men out, including Tottenham and Chelsea. I could send them my condolences, but I didn’t.

But in fact, the figures hide the real situation. Of course, Downman is going to be out for a while yet, but Calafiori and Reyna are apparently both fit, but need to have the final fitness tests to see if they can play. Given the availability of everyone else, it seems very unlikely.

The Standard has now joined in the media trick of advertising the line-up as being on one page, and then when you go to that page, they send the reader to another page (a way of going up the rankings, but rather annoying – my link is to the actual page with the line-up on).

Raya

White, Saliba, Gabriel, Timber;

Zubimendi, Rice, Odegaard;

Saka, Gyokeres, Martinelli

The Metro has

Raya;

Time, Saliba, Gabriel, Hincapie

Rice, Zubimendi, Odegaard;

Saka, Gyokeres, Martinelli

Football London however manages a variation by including Jesus

Raya;

White, Saliba, Gabriel, Timber;

Zubimendi, Rice, Odegaard,

Saka, Jesus, Trossard.

So there we are. Kick off is at 4.30pm with the game on Sky. Whatever happens Arsenal will be top of the league but it could be by four, five or seven points. And if we do win, we will once again have the best goal difference in the Premier League.

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Arsenal	22	15	5	2	40	14	26	50
2	Manchester City	23	14	4	5	47	21	26	46

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