Saturday, 21st November 2009 – KO: 17:30

After what seems like an absolute age, we finally have the chance to put the defeat to Chelsea behind us here today.

Everton have had a fairly poor start to the season and the only teams that they have played against who are normally on a similar level are Arsenal and Aston Villa (they held Villa to a 1-1 at Goodison but were stuffed 6-1 by Arsenal, also at Goodison).

There are signs, however, that they are starting to get their form back a bit with just one defeat in their last seven games.

We, of course, go into this game in third position in the League and five points behind Chelsea and you really do get the feeling that we have to go on something of a winning streak now, especially in our home games. We have so far dropped just two points from a possible 18 at home so we basically need more of the same, starting today.

Our main problem going into this one seems to be our defence and I can’t get to the bottom of exactly who is fit. Ferdinand is obviously out but there are doubts over O’Shea, Evra and Evans. Vidic will be back so it could well be Vidic and Brown in the middle but I can’t believe Fergie will go with both Da Silva’s in the wide positions. I suspect Evra will be okay.

Up front and in the midfield, Fergie has all options available and the Berbatov/Rooney partnership could be used in attack with any four from around ten in midfield!

Picking the right midfield is going to be vitally important in this one. Everton are likely to be very tight in an attempt to stifle our attacking play and will no doubt work very hard to close us down whenever they are not in possession.

For this reason, I think we need the right balance of strength and attacking flair which would suggest to me Giggs, Fletcher, Anderson and Valencia (Carrick is another slight injury doubt but if fit, then he may start instead of Anderson).

United are clear favourites to win here (around 1.40) so whilst I do think we will win, that’s not really meaty enough to get you teeth into.

The problem is knowing just how many we are capable of scoring. We have been huffing and puffing in most of our games this season but we are averaging about two goals per game. I cannot see us scoring more than two against Everton.

With our patched up defence, Everton might well fancy their chances of nicking at least one of their own but they themselves have hardly been setting goal-scoring records so far this season (just six goals in their five away games so far this season and just fifteen in eleven games overall).

Everything points to a 2-0 or 2-1 win for United but as usual, that is the difference between going for the Under/Over 2.5 goals or going for the -1.5 Asian Handicap.

Decisions, decisions.

I’m going to stick my neck out a bit here and rely on the United defence holding firm whilst hoping that our attackers can maintain the two goal per game average for a 2-0 win.

The bet is going to be 4 points Manchester United -1.0/-1.5 AH @ 1.88 with Canbet.

It seems a bit ridiulous to be complaining about United’s lack of firepower when they have just won 3-0 but this was the thing that really stood out for me in this game.

We were totally dominant for almost the entire 90 minutes of this game as Everton, lacking several key players due to injury, just didn’t pose anything like the kind of opposition they normally do.

The stats show that we had 65.5% of the possession and 56.9% territorial advantage. After the first half, these figures would have been even higher and there were long spells when we enjoyed almost 80% possession.

We started the game very brightly and much more Manchester United-like with quick, slick passing moves that Everton just couldn’t live with but once we got into the final third, nobody quite knew what to do.

Fergie started with Owen and Rooney up front and you would have thought that those two could have conjured something up between them but it just didn’t happen.

Everton, despite being totally outplayed, actually seemed to be more dangerous in attack with their far more direct approach. Both teams ended this game with five shots on target and Everton had a “goal” ruled offside.

As the first half started to ebb away, we had been totally dominant but with nothing to show for it and I began to feel that the half might have a sting in the tail for us but then Darren Fletcher scored an absolute wonder goal.

It was the kind of shot that normally (like 99 times out of 100) ends in Row Z and even when I watched the replay, I still expected to see the ball fly high over the bar but he took it fantastically well and showed terrific technique to keep the ball down and into the top corner.

Finally, we had the goal that our build up play deserved although I still felt that after such dominance, we should have had at least a couple by that point.

In the second half, Everton changed their system a bit and started to put up a bit of a fight and with the score just 1-0, we had to ride our luck on one or two occasions to keep it that way.

After 67 minutes, there was a massive sigh of relief as Michael Carrick scored what is becoming a bit of a trademark goal for him as he calmy passed the ball into the net – 2-0.

The game was finally put to bed on 76 minutes when Valencia scored what is also becoming a trademark goal for him as he hit a rather scuffy looking shot across goal that deflected off the defender and beyond the diving Tim Howard – 3-0.

So, on the face of it, 3-0 looks like a bit of a whupping against a side who, under better circumstances, could be challenging for 4th or 5th place in the League but I just can’t shake the feeling that we are still making hard work of converting our possession into goals and against a full-strength Everton, we might have struggled even more today.

Still, for the first game back after a two week international break and with a depleted defence ourselves, it was good to keep a clean sheet and get back to winning ways.