Wednesday, 25th November 2009 – KO: 19:45

With qualification already assured but top spot still to be confirmed, this is not quite a dead rubber of a game but it’s not too far off.

Our unbeaten home run in the Champions League now stretches back to something like 23 games and so continuing that will be the order of the day.

The tricky part here is figuring out just who will play and there are bound to be several changes as Fergie gives some of the younger players a taste of Champions League action at Old Trafford.

I think Anderson is due a start and the talk is that Gibson will also be given a start. Both fine players but this will be a massive test for them if Fergie decides to go with that duo in central midfield.

Nani is another who has missed out recently and could be recalled for this one but a midfield of Nani, Gibson, Anderson and Obertan seems to be lacking something to me but I must admit, I wouldn’t mind seeing it in action!

I’m going to go a bit crazy here and put forward the following:-

Foster, Neville, Brown, Vidic, Fabio, Welbeck, Anderson, Gibson, Obertan, Rooney, Berbatov.

The fact that Rooney came off early against Everton could be a clue that he was in mind for this one but should it transpire that Fergie just brought him off in order to give him a rest then I wouldn’t be totally surprised to see Macheda take his place.

If that kind of team is anything like the team Fergie puts out then expect to see the likes of Giggs, Scholes and Rooney on the bench and ready to come on should things not go quite to plan.

If picking the team for this one is difficult enough then guessing what will happen in the game itself is even harder.

Besiktas provided quite stubborn opposition when we played them in the Group opener at their place but there was always a feeling that we were playing within ourselves and once we started to turn the screw a bit towards the end, the goal came and we won 1-0.

Whilst Besiktas seemed to be decent enough in defence and midfield, they were lacking any real quality up front on that occasion. The fact that since then, they have managed just one goal in the opening four Champions League matches probably bears this out.

They are currently rooted to the bottom of the group with just one point from their games and I think it would take something pretty strange to happen for them to grab the third position.

So basically, what we have here is a situation where neither team have an awful lot to gain or lose whatever the result here tonight.

This could lead to a much more open game than we saw in Turkey at the start of the campaign.

I can’t quite see the silly goal-fest type scoreline we saw in our last match against CSKA Moscow largely because I don’t think Besiktas will come anywhere near scoring three but I can see us scoring two or three.

However, with so many unknowns, it is not a game I would really want to get too involved with from a betting perspective.

However, I am going to put my faith in Fergie and trust that whoever he picks here tonight will come out all guns blazing and that Besiktas will be picked off whenever they decide to come out of their shell.

The bet is 2 points Manchester United -1.5 AH @ 2.15 with Canbet.

Well, I wasn’t too far out with my team selection but I honestly didn’t see Macheda and Welbeck starting upfront here. Rafael was also preferred to Fabio in the left-back position and Ji Sung Park made something of a surprise re-appearance on the left.

It was a highly experimental line-up from Fergie but whilst he will probably get a lot of criticism, particularly in view of the result,  there aren’t many “meaningless” games in a season for Fergie to have a real tinker like this so I suppose he can be forgiven for taking the opportunity here.

Besiktas hadn’t won away from home in Europe since a 1-0 win against Chelsea way back in 2003 and one goal in four games in this campaign suggested that they wouldn’t be troubling Ben Foster too much in this game.

Besides, we only needed a draw to preserve our long home unbeaten run and a draw would have also guaranteed us top spot in the group as Wolfsburg were earlier, and somewhat surprisingly, beaten 2-1 by CSKA Moscow after they had taken a 1-0 lead.

There were a few talking points in this one but I will probably write seperate articles for them but the main concern for me is our continuing inability to score. It doesn’t seem to matter too much who Fergie plays up front at the moment as they are all making very hard work of creating chances.

To be fair, Besiktas were very well organised here tonight and whenever we were in possession they seemed to almost go into a 8-1-1 formation which made the penalty area extremely congested and we just could not come up with a way through.

So, in the end, Tello’s deflected shot after 20 minutes was enough to give them all three points and leave Fergie and his boys a bit red-faced.

As for the bet, I still think it was the value. The team Fergie put out here tonight could have clicked and they could well have won the game and if they could win the game by one goal, then they could have won the game by two goals.

On the night, they didn’t quite click and a bit of bad luck at important moments cost us.

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