Manchester United have named their team to face Newcastle United this afternoon.
United have lost four out of their last five games against Newcastle, including the most recent at Old Trafford in December, where the Magpies scored three and could easily have netted double that amount.
In fact, United have not won at St James. Park since 2020, when supporters were locked out – the last time United fans saw their team win at the stadium was over six years ago, in January 2019, right at the start of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s reign as caretaker manager.
It is Newcastle’s first home game since they won their first trophy in multiple generations, after beating Liverpool recently to lift the League Cup. However, Eddie Howe will be missing the celebration as he is in hospital.
With a handful of games left in the league, Newcastle will be looking to take advantage of Nottingham Forest’s slip yesterday and use their confidence to try and get a Champions League spot to round off what would be a great season for them.
For the visitors, well, there are milestones, but nothing that could help to rescue what will be the worst Premier League season in the history of the club.
With Thursday’s 2-2 draw at Lyon being United’s 6000th competitive game, this afternoon’s match is the 4000th league game in the history of the Old Trafford club. The milestones have been mixed. On the 1000th, we lost 3-1 at home to Middlesbrough. The 2000th, in August 1973, was a 1-0 win over Stoke City – but United were still relegated at the end of the campaign. The 3000th was the club’s trip to Chelsea in 1998, a 0-0 draw – thankfully, that season ended a little better.
Ruben Amorim has rotated his side with next Thursday’s European match with Lyon present in his thinking, but none of the players were players returning from injury. “I think it’s the same (squad),” he said before the match. “There’s a great responsibility. We don’t have a team that is really big to do rotate, and then we have some players that I know that cannot make 90 minutes in this moment still. We have be careful, so we will try to address all these subjects in the game against Newcastle. But we have a great responsibility when we play any game, so I will try to look at that. That is for sure. But we have to face Newcastle with a team that we can be competitive, and to win the game.”
Confirmed United team :
Bayindir
Mazaroui Lindelof Yoro
DalotUgarte Eriksen Amass
Garnacho Zirkzee Fernandes
The match is live from 4.30pm on Sky Sports in the UK.
