Saturday, 23rd January 2010 – KO: 15:00

Due to the fact that we’re out of the FA Cup (and, obviously, so are Hull) this is the only Premier League match being played this weekend.

It is now very tight at the top between ourselves, Chelsea and Arsenal and it seems that every game that is played produces a new leader at the moment. If we can win this one today, we will go top by a point.

Anyway, onto the game.

Hull were largely expected to be relegated last season but thanks to a terrific first half of the season, they put enough points on the board to give them a chance and ended up surviving by the skin of their teeth.

So far this season, there haven’t been very many highlights for them and they arrive here third from bottom.

Their away form, in particular, has been very poor: just four points from eleven games although strangely, two of those points came against Tottenham and Manchester City.

As for us, our home form has been very good and only Aston Villa have come to Old Trafford and won.

It’s going to be interesting to see who lines up for United in this one.

Rio Ferdinand looks set to make his long-awaited return from injury and it will be good if the real Rio Ferdinand is back. If Rio is back then it will probably be Brown who makes way unless Fergie plays him at right back.

I don’t think Nani did anything wrong in our last game and could be on the left. I doubt very much that Obertan will be considered as he played a full ninety minutes for the reserves less than 48 hours ago.

The interesting decision is going to be the forward places. If Berby is fit again then he could well partner Rooney but new boy Diouf did his case no harm whatsoever by scoring a hat-trick in his first start for the Reserves on Thursday. He came off after around 55 minutes the other night with a knock but he is apparently okay and ready for action again.

Hull will no doubt come here and hope to be strong in defence and deny us time and space. I suspect Fergie will put out as strong an attacking team as he can muster and go all out for a convincing win. Nothing less than three points here today will be good enough and a chance to go to the top, however briefly, has to be taken.

Like most of our home games this season, we could win comfortably (as we did when we played Hull at their place just last month) or we could misfire and limp to a 2-1 or 1-0 win.

I’d like to think, however, that as players are now coming back and the team is starting to look a bit more like it’s normal self, we should be beating Hull comfortably.

In an attempt to find something worth betting on for this one that doesn’t require United to win by three goals, I am going to go back into the corner market for this one.

The bet is 3 points OVER 11.5 Corners @ 1.85 with Bet365.

Fergie sprung something of a surprise here as he played both Park and Nani… Park on the left and Nani on the right.

Valencia has been ever-present on that right hand side and it is becoming taken for granted that he will start but Nani is naturally right-sided and he looked much more comfortable over there.

Wayne Rooney will rightfully grab all the headlines for this match but I have to give Nani a massive thumbs up for his performance today. No frustrating moments just pure quality dribbles and crosses all the way through. There was even a great free-kick from him that led to Rooney’s second. He was also denied what appeared to be a penalty after a neat dribble drew in a clumsy tackle.

Rooney got us off to a flying start after eight minutes but the score stayed 1-0 for an awful long time and it was starting to look like it might be a nervy end to the game.

Enter Wayne Rooney for three goals in ten minutes to put the match well and truly to bed and give it the kind of score that really, our possession and territorial advantage probably deserved.

4-0 was probably a bit harsh on Hull but anything less than 3-0 would have been harsh on us.

As for the bet, it was won by half time (one of those you wish you had been a bit more adventurous with the point on!) so… yay me too!