Tuesday, 8th December 2009 – KO: 19:45

This Champions League campaign started like a dream for Manchester United – three wins from our opening three matches put us on the verge of qualification and all we needed was a point from our remaining three matches to seal our place.

3-1 down against CSKA Moscow with minutes left on the clock and it started to look a little less comfortable. Those two goals we managed to score to salvage that point that night now look absolutely priceless as we then lost quite sensationally to Besiktas at Old Trafford.

Our place in the next round is assured but we have limped over the line. Quite literally.

For this game against Wolfsburg, we are without most of our regular players (Van Der Sar, Neville, Brown, Evans, O’Shea, Ferdinand, Vidic, Rooney, Berbatov, Fabio, Rafael and Macheda off the top of my head).

Obviously, the main problem is our defence and it could be that we go with Park, Fletcher, Carrick and Evra.

The midfield is likely to be Valencia, Scholes, Gibson, Anderson and Obertan with Owen playing upfront on his own.

Any further injuries during this game and we really will be scraping the bottom of the barrel.

As for Wolfsburg, well, after a couple of games, I felt certain that we would win the group and Wolfsburg would take the second slot but they themselves have had a tough time after such a promising start and now it might mean that they need to win here tonight to ensure their progress (much depends on the result of the other Group match between CSKA and Besiktas).

Despite all the injures, we still have eleven excellent players on the field tonight and the big question is how the defence will cope with the attacking threat of Dzeko, Grafite and Martins.

Personally, I can’t see us keeping them out at their place for 90 minutes and I would not be surprised if Wolfsburg scored more than once.

So, the next question is how many can we score?

Gibson has scored three cracking goals in the last couple of games but can he be expected to do it again?

If ever Anderson needed to find his shooting boots, it is tonight but I would not hold my breath on that one.

Paul Scholes rolled back the years with a stunner against West Ham on Saturday and another like that would be great.

Obertan gets himself into good positions but has so far shown a bit of a lack of composure in front of goal. He needs to believe in himself tonight and he could grab one for us.

The main attacking threat, I think comes from a combination of Valencia and Owen.

Valencia himself, despite hardly being a goal-machine at Wigan, has been knocking them in regularly since his arrival and another from him tonight would not be a surprise but I think his supply to Owen could be the key.

Owen will make the runs, will take up the positions and Valencia’s accurate, low crosses into him will provide him with the ammunition.

All in all, I do think that this is going to be an exciting match. Just as we did against West Ham, Manchester United will take the stance that the best form of defence is attack and it could be like the old days when we didn’t care if the opposition scored two because we would score three.

Wolfsburg will surely go for the jugular. They need a win to make absolutely sure of qualification. I don’t know how much truth there is to the rumours but if Dzeko is indeed a target of Fergie’s then tonight he has the chance to impress his future boss.

If this one ends a low scoring affair, I will be very surprised.

The bet is 4 points Over 2.5 Goals @ 1.87 with Bet365.

United played a very strange formation here with Carrick, Fletcher and Evra making some kind of three man defence with Nani and Park playing almost as full backs.

Anderson, Scholes and Gibson made up the midfield with Welbeck and Owen dropping in and playing forward at the same time.

Wolfsburg seemed strangely subdued for much of the game but still got the better of the makeshift defence on a couple of occasions with free headers that they couldn’t take advantage of.

As the first half trickled away with only a disallowed Welbeck goal the only thing of note from Manchester United, Owen popped up to score with his head.

The cross was delivered by Nani and it summed up Nani as a whole really. For forty odd minutes, he did very little and then put in a beautiful cross for the goal.

I think Owen’s goal was our first shot on target in the whole of the first half.

Wolfsburg came out with more purpose in the second half because they had no alternative but to push forward and within ten minutes, Dzeko headed them level.

For a spell after that, United were under the cosh a bit and packed the defence with eight or nine men at times and Wolfsburg could not find another way through.

After around 75 minutes, Fergie made a couple of straight swaps with Welbeck and Nani going off for Obertan and Valencia whichwere the two I thought Fergie would start with here.

Whilst Valencia didn’t really get into things, Obertan didn’t take long at all to get into his stride and within eight minutes of coming on produced a dazzling bit of skill which tied three Wolfsburg defenders in knots before firing a low ball across the box for Owen to tap in for his second.

Owen’s hat-trick came right at the end as the result of a classic United counter attack after Wolfsburg had come within a whisker of equalising for the second time.

Owen picked up the ball and ran a fair distance before chipping cooly over the keeper.

So United, despite missing almost a full team of players won 3-1, topped the group and can now look forward to the draw for the next stage.

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