Apologies for the lateness of this post but I have been hearing all kinds of things all week about who is not going to be fit to play this afternoon and I wanted to leave it as late as possible to see if there was any kind of clarification.

At various stages of the week, I had heard that Jones, Carrick, Nani and then yesterday Rooney were all struggling for fitness following the Arsenal game.

Obviously, Jones looked a major doubt but Nani also hobbled off in the Arsenal game and Rooney appeared unable to even walk at the end after a series of clattering challenges.

Anyway, I am no wiser this morning and I do wonder if Fergie is going to take a bit of a gamble in this game and rest those players who might not be 100% fit so that they might be ready for the league games.

The Premier League is clearly our priority this season and with Stoke and then Chelsea coming hot on the heels of this one, we have two stern tests ahead of us in that competition and I am now of the view that Fergie will put out a team which he believes will push Liverpool here today but if it goes wrong then it won’t be viewed with enormous disappointment.

In any case, our record at Anfield of late hasn’t been great and it did look for long periods in our league game earlier this season that we were largely second-best and whilst we managed to salvage a 1-1 draw on that occasion, Liverpool probably felt that they deserved the win.

Liverpool themselves have been a bit inconsistent of late. They put in two very good performances to overcome Man City over the two legs of the Carling Cup semi but those games sandwiched a 3-1 defeat at the hands of Bolton and a mediocre 0-0 against Stoke.

I think we could win here today, even if all those listed above are out injured but it will require whoever steps in to hit the ground running and perform to their best.

Making any kind of prediction here is difficult but I think the game could see more goals than our league fixture and that is going to form the basis of my tentative bet.

The bet is 1 point Over 2.5 goals @ 2.00 with Bet365.

Had this game taken place a couple of weeks ago then I think most United fans would have gone into it with the confidence that we could get some sort of revenge for the 6-1 drubbing but after two defeats and, worst still, two pretty abject displays in our last two games then it really is difficult to think of one good reason to believe that we can win this one.

On the other hand, there are plenty of reasons to believe that City will win.

For a start, they are arguably the best team in England at this moment. The league table backs this up. The way they beat us at OT earlier in the season adds further weight to the argument.

City have turned the Etihad Stadium into the kind of fortress that teams such as ourselves at OT and Chelsea at Stamford Bridge have done in recent years. In fact, in their last twenty home league games, they have dropped just two points (Fulham, last February).

City are the defending FA Cup Champions whilst our own record in this competition in recent years has been pretty underwhelming.

Despite Mancini’s frankly laughable comments that he didn’t know if he had eighteen players available for this one (with the Toure’s going to the African Cup of Nations) he has a formidable starting eleven of fully fit players (although Barry is suspended and Yaya Toure is out so that does mess their normal midfield up rather a lot) whilst we have an injury list which, whilst improving of late, is still ridiculously long and includes at least two players who would no doubt have started in this one (Vidic and Fletcher).

So that’s the case for Manchester City in this one and I think it’s fair to say that an awful lot of boxes are ticked there. The head can only come to the conclusion that City will win this one even if the heart begs to differ.

However, I have been supporting United long enough to know that we can never be written off. Some of our best ever results have come out of the blue (no pun intended). Indeed, there may even be the possibility of some degree of complacency on the City part that we can take advantage of but perhaps that would be grasping at straws.

There is also a possibility that we may view the FA Cup differently this season. In recent seasons, I have had the feeling that Fergie hasn’t treated the competition very seriously – of course he would like to win it and sends out a team he believes is capable of winning the match but it seems to be a case of either win the game or lose the game… but don’t draw the game because a draw means a replay and another fixture to contend with as we attempt to compete for the bigger prizes such as the Premier League and the Champions League.

This season, we don’t have the Champions League to worry about. Yes, we have the Europa League and I don’t know what Sir Alex’s private thoughts are on that tournament but, speaking as a fan, I think I would rather see us lift the FA Cup than the Europa League trophy. It could well be the case that a draw in this fixture so that we can get City back to an OT replay would not be seen as such a bad thing.

What I would like to see in this game more than anything is all the players being played in their “proper” positions. Due to injuries, Fergie has tried with mixed success to put square pegs into round holes in several games recently but I would like to see something along the lines of the following (if Smalling is fit):-

Lindegaard, Rafael, Smalling, Rio, Evra, Valencia, Carrick, Jones, Nani, Rooney, Hernandez in the kind of 4-5-1/4-4-2 type formation which has served us well.

Jones in midfield might be slightly iffy but I’m convinced that he is better/safer there than in central defence at the moment – he had a nightmare in there against Newcastle the other night and had some kind of hand in all three of their goals.

If Smalling doesn’t make it back then it could well be that Fergie goes with Anderson in midfield and brings Jones back into the centre of defence and, if that is the case, then I think we could have trouble and if Fergie goes with De Gea ahead of Lindegaard then City will simply bombard us with crosses all afternoon long. Neither De Gea nor Jones seem particularly good at dealing with crosses (and this is where we miss Vidic massively).

Anyway. What’s going to happen here today? I think the answer has to be: “anything could happen”. I doubt very much that we’ll be seeing another 6-1 scoreline or anything even close and some of the bookies actually seem to think that we’ll have a fairly low-scoring game. I suppose it’s possible that it will be cagey but I’ve got a feeling that there’ll be more fireworks here today.

May the… erm… “best” team win!

The bet is going to be a tentative 2 points on OVER 2.5 goals @ 1.92 with Bet365.