Manchester United prepare to face Chelsea this evening with a return to Wembley on the cards for the victor in just a fortnight’s time.
This will be the fourth consecutive time these teams have met in the competition, with Chelsea winning two of those – and one of those was the 2018 final.
But this is now a different Chelsea team, and a different Manchester United side, and the Blues, who once held a reputation for being a proper bogey side for the Red Devils, have lost all three encounters against Ole Gunnar Solskjaer under their new manager Frank Lampard.
Solskjaer, however, has a squad feeling the effects of many games in a short space of time. Some could say that issue was compounded by his choice to keep the first eleven for five consecutive games, but he could do nothing about the extra ten minutes or so his players had to play on Thursday night against Crystal Palace. It means the Chelsea players have had two full days rest more than United’s – and Ole already had headaches when he admitted Luke Shaw was ruled out after the injury he picked up against Southampton.
“Luke will be out,” Ole told ManUtd.com. “I can’t see him recovering. Brandon will hopefully be okay, he’ll try to join in training today with his eye. We’ll see if he can see the ball when he comes in! He should be fine.”
It has been suggested that Jesse Lingard and Sergio Romero would be in the starting line-up. Romero, in particular, might feel optimistic about playing considering he is usually the cup goalkeeper. He was indeed in goal for the League Cup win at Stamford Bridge.
“The team is not selected yet and that goes both for Jesse and Sergio,” Solskjaer said. “They’ve got a good chance of being involved, so we’ll make a decision on that later on.”
Solskjaer normally changes his shape against Chelsea – in the League Cup he played a 3-4-3 formation, and here we feel he might use the shape he used against Tottenham at Wembley in one of his very first games, in order to keep it tight and also keep Mason Greenwood fresh.
Predicted team :
Romero
Wan-Bissaka Lindelof Maguire Williams
Matic McTominay Pogba
Fernandes
Rashford Martial
