2 game unbeaten run for City and me . After the relative comfortable result last Sunday, this visit to the North West will prove rather more taxing. More content to follow
Yes and just our luck that the new manager has been basically confirmed so they will all be playing for their position too. Plus even if not no doubt we will have Ronaldo winning an exceptionally soft penalty we would never have been awarded if it was done to one of our players…
Meanwhile Sean Dyche is the latest manager to be sacked after losing to us: https://theathletic.com/news/sean-d...after-almost-10-years-in-charge/dc3gQ2NkDCvy/
Team news for tomorrow: "Billy Gilmour is back after missing the win over Burnley due to illness which Smith confirmed on Friday morning was Covid-related. Prezemyslaw Placheta is back after his ankle injury. Josh Sargent (ankle) has the protective boot off but will not resume training until next week and is not available for the trip to Old Trafford." The other bad news is that Omobamidele has joined Idah and Kabak in being out for the rest of the season.
LAWRO'S PREDICTION Norwich are hanging on in there, aren't they? They have not thrown in the towel yet and showed it with their win over Burnley last weekend. There has been plenty of talk that Ajax boss Erik ten Hag is about to become Manchester United's next manager but, for the time being, Ralf Rangnick is still interim boss and it is not working for them. That arrangement can work - Guus Hiddink showed that when he had four months with Chelsea and won the FA Cup in 2009 - but the Blues had a strong and united dressing room to help to run the team the right way, which United clearly don't have. They should still beat Norwich, of course, but too many of their players seem to be thinking 'does it really matter?' right now, and that won't change until the new manager arrives. Prediction: 2-0
Be interesting to see if we stick to the team and formation against Burnley or whether we return to 4-3-3 with McLean, Gilmour and either Lees Melou or Normann making up the three.
I will be very angry if we change a winning team to bring Gilmour in. I've nothing against Billy, who has loads of potential for Chelsea, but his development shouldn't come at the expense of our players, given that we'll be playing in the Championship next season and he'll be off to Everton.
Normann isn't likely to be with us next season either, but I do think we should stick with same winning team.
Gilmour should not play, the stats speak to our successes, relative as they are, when he's not on the pitch for Norwich.
Looks like a sensible move by Smith in terms of his own reputation with the fans. If he keeps the same side and we look really bad, fans will probably put it down to the difference in class between Burnley and MU, and not blame Smith. If he'd shoe-horned Gilmour back in and abandoned the 4-2-3-1 and we looked really bad, I don't think they'd be as forgiving.
