Utd look very weak defensively, and Carroll followed up his good game against Wolves with a goal in the derby, so i think he probably starts. I believe Vidic is back? Which is ideal for Carroll who will get stuck into him. I do think the Bellamy/Gerrard/Suarez combination sounds awesome, but expect Andy to prove some doubters wrong and derail the ridiculous Phil Jones love in.
Someone during the week said Jones is good defensively but with the ball at his feet is like an elephant on rollerskates. That would be a very good description. I would let Suarez looose on him. Thats why I feel its necessary to pack the midfield and let a quartet cause havoc in the Man United back-line.
lads.... lets be objective. Jones has started the season very well and has not looked out of place.. neither has smalling. Evans has let them down badly most of the time. They are going to roll out Ferdinand, vidic, maybe jones at right back and evra.. I think actually the few utd fans making predictions are not too confident of the clean sheet and i find that interesting but most of all I put it down to evans. We would want to be less cocky about carroll seeing wes brown played him off the park on the opening day so more than anything else this game will be decided in the midfield where ability to pressurise on the one hand and retain possession on the other will be vital. I just want to leave it at that cos the real debate only starts after the two pre match press conferences when some ACTUAL news might come up and then we can see where we are all at.
Look, Phil Jones clearly has talent and potential. The fact is though his start to the season has been blown way out of proportion. Utd have shipped plenty of goals and you can't tell me Evans was responsible for all of those. Utd were carved open by Norwich at Old Trafford so forgive us for thinking Carroll has a good chance of building on his recent performances.
Carroll has a chance of doing something, He's recently doing what he was doing when he was at Newcastle, he's being a right bastard for defenders. He's not always scored, but he's putting himself about a lot more than he was previously. Persistence is key and I think he's learnt that. He scored against Everton because he persisted. ''At first you don't succeed...''. I said a while back that I felt someone that is a right pain in the arse like Craig Bellamy may have a good influence on Andy Carroll. Maybe just maybe I might be right.