Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
Sunderland are without Jeremain Lens, Younes Kaboul and Duncan Watmore all miss out through injury. Billy Jones is doubtful, but Fabio Borini has recovered from a virus.
Manchester United’s Guillermo Varela, Phil Jones and Adnan Januzaj suffered injuries playing for the under-21 side.
Striker Will Keane is in the squad after impressing for the second string.
United still have Bastian Schweinsteiger, Luke Shaw, Marcos Rojo, Antonio Valencia and Ashley Young on the sidelines.
Editor’s Note: Sunderland got a vital point away at Liverpool last Weekend after coming from 2-0 down to level things up through the now disgraced former player Adam Johnson and Jermain Defoe. That point still sees them 19th in the Premier League table as they welcome the visit of Manchester United this lunchtime.
The Black Cats are currently four points behind their local rivals Newcastle and that also is the distance between themselves and safety. The fact they haven’t won in 4 Matches certainly hasn’t helped their cause especially with games now running out between now and the end of the season.
It was certainly a spirited fightback last Saturday but what has been Sunderland’s undoing in the main this campaign has been at the back where they have conceded the most amount of Goals in the Premier League so far.
Defensive reinforcements have come in last month but there is still a lot of work to be done for the situation to be turned around and with only 5 wins all season they need to start adding to that number and there’s no better time to do that then against Manchester United.
It won’t be an easy task as Louis Van Gaal’s side have certainly been playing better in the last couple of weeks with them unbeaten in 3 matches in all competitions. They were minutes away from getting a win at Stamford Bridge last Sunday but a Diego Costa injury time meant that they only went home with a share of the points
That draw did their hopes of a Top 4 finish no favours as they are now 6 points behind nearest rivals Manchester City in 4th. But you can’t quite rule United out just yet, if they were to win this Lunchtime and City were to lose then the gap would only be down to a solitary 3 points with still 12 league matches to go and United still have to play the likes of Arsenal and Spurs before the end of the season.
Louis Van Gaal’s is seemingly under constant pressure as rumours of Jose Mourinho’s impending arrival pick up more pace with each week, the only way that Van Gaal can dampen those rumours is by masterminding United to more and more victories. That said you get the feeling that even that won’t be enough to keep The Dutchman in a job past the end of May.
Employment talk will be put on the back burner for at least a couple of hours but I have a feeling that United will have enough to get past Sunderland Today and ultimately keep pressure on the Top 4. They need to make sure the gap is certainly no bigger than 6 points at the end of this massive weekend of Premier League Football. An away win for me.
