You may have the back-to-work fear this evening but so do five of Joe Mourinho’s squad.
The Man Utd boss has changed almost half of his side as they prepare to face Wst Ham in East London.
Rojo, Darmian, Jones, Carrick and Lingard are in for Fellaini, Martial, Bailly, Smalling and Blind by my count.
Irish international Darren Randolph starts for the Hammers in goal of course.
West Ham: Randolph, Obiang, Reid, Ogbonna, Cresswell, Kouyate, Nordtveit, Antonio, Feghouli, Payet, Lanzini.
Subs: Carroll, Adrian, Noble, Ayew, Fletcher, Fernandes, Quina.
Man Utd: De Gea, Valencia, Jones, Rojo, Darmian, Ander Herrera, Carrick, Pogba, Mkhitaryan, Ibrahimovic, Lingard.
Subs: Mata, Martial, Smalling, Young, Rashford, Romero, Fellaini.
Referee: Mike Dean (Wirral)
The three-o-clockers are finishing up around now and there’s plenty to digest here.
The highlight of those aforementioned 3pm kick-offs? This hipster-looking chap who just noticed Christian Fuch’s name:
“A bit of both,”says Mourinho, when asked if he planned out his team selections before Christmas or reacted over the festive period.
“But I thought against Boro it was important to have Smalling fresh for this game. Some players react better than others with the accumulation of matches. But, we have no excuses. We have the same problem as West Ham. We are the privileged ones with more time to rest so may the best team win.”
And we’re off at the London Stadium.
Payet has a first sighter at goal but it doesn’t trouble De Gea. With Marseille said to be ready to table — as is the verb, at this time of year — a £30m bid, who knows if we’ll see much more of him after this month.
He was doing this in the warm-up:
Payet again causes some concern in the visitors’ box. He picks up the ball in front of the D but his shot is dragged wide.
It’s pretty congested in the middle of the field.
Good save De Gea!
Lanzini feeds Payet on the right who draws two defenders. The Frenchman returns the ball to Lanzini, who’s now free and his solid strike is parried behind.
Ibra gets the corner away at the second attempt. Bright start for the Hammers.
Mike Dean hates bubbles.
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It was 50-50 and I presumed it was Phil Jones who was in trouble.
Feghouli overran the ball and hurt Jones but that was never a red. Gary Neville agrees.
Differing views. What did you make of it?
Man Utd are enjoying plenty of the ball but have yet to do anything of note with it since that red card decision.
Payet’s been booked by Mike Dean and this is the most animated the West Ham support have been since Upton Park.
Almost 35 minutes on the clock now and Man Utd have yet to have a shot. This isn’t a great game is it?
The ball was squared to the edge of the six-yard box, Valencia turns it goalwards but Randolph claws it out. The goal software shows it was maybe 75% over the line.
Jesse Lingard then turns the rebound off the post somehow and it’s cleared. What a let off.
Sky have tweeted a video of that red card tackle; what’s your verdict?
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Darmian’s booked for body checking Valencia. Neville reckons the ref is in ‘a muddled state’ in which he doesn’t know what’s a yellow or red.
Save! Lanzini curls in shot and De Gea has to save acrobatically.
Mourinho sends his subs out to warm up.
The sides go in scoreless, with the hosts a man down and Mike Dean very much the story.
What did you make of that?
Alan Smith suggests that Mike Dean likes to be the centre of the story while the normally even-tempered Niall Quinn ‘calls out’ the ref’s arrogance and describes that red card as rank bad refereeing.
The players are reemerging from the tunnel with Juan Mata about to be introduced in pace of Darmian. Carrick goes to centre half and Rojo goes to left back.
United have started at a higher tempo after what was surely a good chat from Mourinho.
Randolph won a foot race with Zlatan after a back pass as under-hit.
More Mike Dean chat!
The ball’s hopped him from five yards and United win possession 35 yards from West Ham’s goal.
Kouyate absolutely cleans out Mkhitaryan with Gary Neville arguing it’s worse than Feghouli. Not even a booking though.
Huge chance for West Ham.
No one scored more headed goals in the Premier League in 2016 than Michail Antonio. He got his head on the end of a free kick there but glanced it wide.
Marcus Rashford replaces Jesse Lingard. Let’s see if he can stretch this tiring West Ham defence then.
What a chance for West Ham! Lanzini plays Antonio through but he shoots straight at DDG.
The Spaniard breaks the deadlock after great work from Rashford.
And with that, Mourinho shuts up shop. Mkhitaryan is replaced by Smalling.
Carrick goes back into midfield.
Pogba first-times a shot just wide of Randolph’s far post. He should have hit the target and made the Irish keeper work at least.
Randolph is almost caught out! A Rashford shot squirms under his body and hits the post before he gathers it.
He looks offside but Zlatan finishes well and this is over, you’d guess.
He’s pretty obviously offside.
Ayew’s on for Lanzini but Gary Neville’s lapsed into a long discourse about Mike Dean’s ‘weird’ performance and hasn’t noticed.
Mike Dean mercifully brings proceedings to an end.
It was controversial but Man Utd’s winning run continues. What did you make of that?
It must be so so hard on those poor players. Perhaps the astronomical wages might help. 200 or 300k a week might help the tiredness , maybe a weeks graft on a building site would help poor oul tired kev
@Chris Tobin:
I find it amazing to think there are still people out there who think wealthy people don’t suffer from fatigue or tiredness. The lad was simply answering a question.
@Nollaig Elliot: it must be very tiring deciding which sports car you will drive out of your garage to training the next day:p
@Nollaig Elliot: i never said he wasnt tired but it into context with us mere working mortals
De Bruyne is made of iron. Has been on the end of some horrific tackles all season but gets up and shoulders on. He’s been as impressive in defence as he has been in attack as well. His pressing and tackling has come on leaps. He’s been the second best player in the world this season. If he keeps up the form and lands a few trophies plus a good run with Belgium at the WC he’s got an outside shot at a Ballon D’Or.
@Leon: In the world!? You need to cancel your sky subscription
@Noel Ryan: He’s definitely top 5 at the moment. You won’t see De Bruyne diving that’s for sure, he just gets quietly gets on with business in every game without any extravagance, class player.
KDB is a class act. Both professionally and as a human. Rare commodity on today’s game. I hope Liverpool sign him.
@England’s Envy: could play CB better than Lovren
@Dave O Keeffe: Possibly, but never as good a CB as Lukaku lol.
@England’s Envy: you’re probably right, Liverpool have conceded 9 since VVD arrived, United have only conceded 2 in that time. 9 by the way is half of total united have conceded in the league all season
@Dave O Keeffe: Are you trying to convince me or yourself. How many have you scored. Watching United is like watching paint dry. Liverpool play best ball in Europe. By a distance. Nice tight defence last week by Jones and Co at Wembley.
@England’s Envy: we’ve scored 15, Liverpool have scored 14.
@Dave O Keeffe: sorry, that’s the other way around, Liverpool 15 United 14
Injuries didn’t restrict them to 6 players on the bench, could add an academy player, but no. And people say Mourinho doesn’t promote youth…
@No.: A lot of City’s academy is on loan in Spain or Netherlands at feeder clubs. Although ethically it’s probably off that City own other clubs so that they can grow their empire, giving players full seasons worth of experience compared to a few lousy minutes here and there is a no brainer. The rest of the actual academy at home played a game the night before the Burnley game. Nmecha, a lad from the academy was supposed to be the last name on the bench was injured. He also had two youth players on the bench already, Diaz and Tosin. A third of the bench for the top performing side in Europe all season was made up of youth players, hardly that bad now is it?
@No.: to be fair, their academy team played the night before the early Saturday kick off
No chance of Guardiola giving any of the academy players a chance no?
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