Saturday, 19th December 2009 – KO: 15:00

Just when our depleted defence seemed to be back on the mend, it all seems to have fallen apart again with Wes Brown and possibly Nemanja Vidic back on the injury list after their brief return from injuries.

I believe there is a possibility that Vidic could make this one but Brown seems to be out for definite.

So, it looks like Carrick will have to continue in defence, Evra will no doubt play on the left but who will play alongside them is anyone’s guess at the moment.

This being a tough away fixture against one of the most improved sides of the last couple of seasons, Fergie will no doubt play the five-man midfield with Rooney alone up front.

With the midfielders filling in at the back, it has meant extended runs in the team for the likes of Anderson and Gibson and both seem to be doing a great job in there. I would, however, expect Giggs to play in the midfield for this one with Valencia and probably Obertan on the right and left respectively. If Fletcher is not required to cover in the defence then I suspect Gibson will have to give way for him in midfield.

However, Fergie has hinted that there are likely to be surprises with his team selection for this game so don’t be too surprised (!?) if he starts with Welbeck and Macheda or something equally erm… surprising.

As for Fulham, well they remain a tough opponent even though they do have a few injuries of their own and their aerial presence in the box is likely to give our makeshift defence the kind of problems Villa gave us last weekend.

I’m not going to over analyse this one. We tend to do quite well at Fulham. They did beat us 2-0 in this fixture last season but prior to that we had three wins and these were preceded by three draws.

One thing we have never had in recent years, however, is a 0-0 draw. There are always goals in our games and I expect today to be no different but, as usual, trying to decide just how many goals will be scored is tricky.

For many reasons, this is one of those games that from a betting perspective, it would probably be wise to give it a wide berth.

The bookies generally seem divided on whether or not this will have three goals or more but Canbet’s Over price seems quite wide of the mark and I think it represents a bit of value. I won’t be going overboard on the stakes however.

The bet is going to be 2 points OVER 2.5 goals @ 2.11 with Canbet.

Well, there weren’t too many surprises in terms of personnel here but it was the formation (again) that raised a few eyebrows as Fergie went for a 3-5-2 lineup with Carrick, Fletcher and De Laet at the back, Anderson, Gibson, Evra, Scholes and Valencia in the midfield with Owen and Rooney up front.

It was a gamble from Fergie. He was gambling that we would score the first goal and with the likes of Owen, Rooney, Valencia, Scholes and Gibson, there were definitely goals in the team but Fulham went for the jugular from the first minute and I think when that first goal went in for them after just 22 minutes, it pretty much scuppered Fergie’s gambit.

Had we scored first, I am almost certain that Evra would have dropped back into defence with Owen being sacrificed for a midfielder to make it a more standard 4-5-1 away formation. It would then have been a case of hanging onto the 1-0 and attempting to score another on the break.

With the score just 1-0 at half-time, Fergie had the opportunity to make whatever changes he deemed necessary but with Fulham scoring almost immediately after the break, yet again, the plan was scuppered.

After that second goal it was just a case of Manchester United throwing caution to the wind and going for whatever they could muster. This however just left gaps for Fulham to exploit and whilst a goal for Manchester United at 2-0 might have made for an exciting finish, it was Fulham who scored that critical third and the game was well and truly up.

The whole thing stems from the fact that Fergie’s options are threadbare in defence at the moment. Fletcher might well be one of the best midfielders we have at the moment but he is no centre-back. I’m sorry but one of the things I hate to see from a centre-back is a player who turns his back on incoming shots, Fletcher seemed to do this over and over again.

Also, Scholes didn’t have a great game today and whilst he can appear majestic in games where the opposition gives him time and space to ping passes around, when he is put under severe pressure as he was today, he can look half-asleep. He has already said that he isn’t happy with his form this season and if things don’t pick up for him then I can see pride dictating that he calls it a day at the end of this campaign.

Rooney and Owen are quite a tried and tested pairing but they were given very little to feed on today and neither did themselves justice.

You can take nothing away from Fulham though. They saw a wounded animal and they ruthlessly delivered the killing blow.

As far as the bet was concerned, it won but had you told me beforehand that United would not score then I would have gone 10 points on the Under!