Wednesday evening sees the start of Villarreal's European campaign and what better place than Old Trafford for it to happen. Lets have a quick look at United's possible lineup. Paul Scholes is definitely out and Cristiano Ronaldo is rumoured to be on the mend, he might take his place on the bench. New signing Dimitar Berbatov will lead the line and it remains to be seen if Ferguson will go with the 4-4-3 that was so unsuccessful against Liverpool or if he will change to a more conventional 4-4-2. If he goes 4-4-3 it should look like this :
And a 4-4-2 would look something like this :
Brown - Ferdinand - Vidic - Evra
Fletcher - Anderson - Hargreaves - Nani
Rooney/Tevez
Berbatov
So our lineup : Nihat is out injured, other than that we should have a full squad to choose from. Our starting 11 will depend on how fit Rossi is, if he is near 100% I think Pellegrini will go for a 4-4-2 :
Javi Venta - Gonzalo - Godin - Capdevila
Pires - Senna - Eguren - Cazorla
Rossi Guille - Llorente
In that lineup you could change Pires for Ibagaza or Edmilson for Eguren or Guille for Llorente. All the rest are pretty much guaranteed starters. Now if Rossi is not up to starting or if he is just going for a more conservative option then I think he'll go 4-5-1.
Javi Venta - Gonzalo - Godin - Capdevila
Pires - Senna - Eguren - Cazorla
Ibagaza
Llorente
Perhaps Mati Fernandez will get a start but I doubt it. Other options are attacker Ruben Cani or slick midfielder Bruno.
I think we are well able to compete in midfield, if Eguren plays he will chase and harry all night, he has a phenomenal workrate and he will provide the mettle in midfield, Senna is well able for it too, just in case anyone thought we would be bullied. Defensively we are solid, Gonzalo and Godin are two mean South American centre halves and they will know how to deal with Tevez and you can be sure that they will get stuck into Berbatov. Javi Venta and Capdevila will bomb forward all night.
Attacking wise we have the players to cause problems. Pires, Ibagaza and Cazorla are all extremely creative and will be probing that United defense all night. So overall I think we are well able for United, if we keep it tight early on and get into our rhythm then we can definitely cause problems. The Submarine are coming!
Heres the official squad, most notably Giuseppe Rossi has been left out, he has obviously not recovered in time. Just two strikers so I would be fairly sure that we will play 4-5-1
Goalkeepers: Diego López y Viera.
Defenders: Javi Venta, Gonzalo, Godin, Cygan, Ángel, Capdevila y Fuentes.
Midfielders: Marcos Senna, Edmilson, Eguren, Pires, Santi Cazorla, Mati Fernández, Ibagaza, Bruno y Cani.
Forwards: Guille Franco y Llorente.