Sunday, 14th March 2010 – KO 13:30

This will surely be a case of all systems go. We don’t have another game for a full week (although it’s a big one… Liverpool) so I don’t see why most of the players who destroyed AC Milan in midweek won’t be involved here.

Sure, Fergie will shuffle the pack a bit (Neville and Scholes being the likeliest to stand down) but I expect the team to remain largely the same but with Carrick in midfield and perhaps Berby partnering Rooney upfront again.

Fulham handed us one of the most disappointing defeats of the season when they stuffed us 3-0 at Craven Cottage towards the back end of last year but it has to be said, as good as Fulham were on the day, it was one of those games where our defence was decimated and Fergie played De Laet, Fletcher and Carrick in defence!

I’m not going to analyse this one further. I fully expect us to win this one and win it pretty convincingly. We could ever reverse the score we suffered at Fulham’s place.

We are coming in on this one on the back of a great European victory whilst Fulham are coming into it on the back of a bit of a mauling at Juventus. We played our game at home, Fulham travelled to Italy. We played on Wednesday whilst Fulham played on Thursday. All factors in our favour.

The bet is 5 points United -1.5AH @ 1.69 with Canbet

Roy Hodgson was quite critical of his side’s defending following their 3-1 defeat at the hands of Juventus in midweek and his players seemed to take this on board and defended stoutly for the entire first half.

The problem was that they forgot to attack.

From this point of view, this game was very similar to the AC Milan game as United penned Fulham back over and over again only to be thwarted by either our own final ball or a great last ditch tackle from a Fulham player.

However, it was clear that Fulham could not keep it up for a full 90 minutes as United continued to pile on the pressure.

The lead came seconds after the restart as Fulham were perhaps caught napping and Rooney knocked in from a strange Nani pass which just seemed to arrive at his feet through a crowd of players.

The second for Rooney came from the new look Dimitar Berbatov who took on two players, beat them with skill and pace before slipping it into Rooney’s feet for him to sweep into the net.

The third was for Berbatov and he deserved it for his performance today as he stooped low to head bravely into the bottom corner.

All in all, this game showed just how solid we are looking in defence now that Vidic and Ferdinand are back. There was only one scare when Zamora found himself clean through but Vidic somehow managed to get back and take it from him just as he was about to pull the trigger.

Other than that, it all seemed very comfortable for United. My only complaint was with the referee Mike Jones who I thought was awful. Danny Murphy was arguably Fulham’s best player who, in between fouling our players, actually played some good stuff and produced some great passes but he got away with far too much before eventually being shown the yellow card.

Conversely, our own Valencia was booked for a totally innocuous challenge (tv replays couldn’t even show conclusively that he had actually made contact with his man).

There were one or two other decisions which left me baffled and on one occasion he was going to give a goal kick for a clear corner before, presumably, his linesman put him right.

Anyway, things can’t be all bad if the only thing you’re moaning about is the ref!