Match Preview - Manchester United vs WBA

Manchester United play their second home game in 4 days, looking to get rid of Thursday nights defeat out of their minds.

The Reds lost 2-3 at home to Athletic Bilbao in the Europa League in the first leg after another poor performance in Europe again. As MUFC played on Thursday night, their home game against West Brom has been pushed a day further to Sunday.

Despite having a poor run in Europe this season, MUFC’s league form of late has been sensational, winning six of their last seven games, which included games against Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Spurs.

However, West Brom are in superb form themselves winning all of their last three league games. They beat Wolves 1-5 at Molineux, thrashed Sunderland 4-0 at the Hawthorns and then beat Chelsea 1-0 at home as well, which turned out to be the final game of Andre Villas Boas’ reign as Chelsea manager. This successful run of results has pushed West Brom up to 9th in the table.

As many of you would remember, West Brom were the only team that took points from Man Utd at home last season in the Premiership. They snatched a point at Old Trafford after playing out a 2-2 draw. This was the only draw Man Utd played at home, winning the rest of their 18 games at Old Trafford.

Rio Ferdinand could be rested for the game ahead of the second leg in Spain against Athletic Bilbao, despite being rested for the first leg on Thursday. Paul Scholes faces a similar situation, after he was rested as well for the first leg, although both players could still play as they are available.

Chris Smalling is a doubt for the game after opening a head wound in the game against Bilbao, which he originally suffered on international duty. While Tom Cleverley is available after being out with injury. Antonio Valencia, Michael Owen, Anders Lindegaard, Nemanja Vidic and Darren Fletcher are all out.

West Brom captain Chris Brunt is available after being out for 2 months with a foot injury. Steven Reid is out for the rest of the season after suffering an ankle injury. Jerome Thomas and Billy Jones are doubts.

West Brom’s main man is currently striker Peter Odemwingie. The Nigerian scored 15 league goals in his debut season and is currently on 9 this season. 5 of those goals have come in the last 3 games; a hat-trick vs Wolves and a brace vs Sunderland which helped him win the February player of the month.

Team prediction (Manchester United): De Gea, Fabio, Ferdinand, Evans, Evra, Nani, Carrick, Scholes, Young, Welbeck, Berbatov.

Many of those who started Thursday nights defeat won’t start against West Brom in my opinion, with the second leg of the Europa League coming up very soon.