Still Following the Trawler

GOAL  | Sergio Romero Still no conclusion in the LVG-De Gea-Real Madrid love triangle so that means  Romero will keep his place for the third successive game - leaving arguably the best 'keeper in the world sat in the stands...again. It's all getting a bit boring now isn't it? DEFENCE  | Matteo Darmian, Chris Smalling, Daley Blind, Luke Shaw No change to our defencive set-up as the manager admitted this morning that Jones and Rojo are still ill and lacking in match fitness respectively. MIDFIELD  | Juan Mata,  Bastian Schweinsteiger,   Adnan Januzaj,  Michael Carrick,    Memphis Depay In the same press-conference van Gaal discussed the possibility of granting Schweinsteiger his first start, with either Carrick or Schneiderlin the player to be sacrificed - for me, I reckon Carrick will keep his place. Januzaj deserves to go on a run of games now after decent performances against Villa and Brugge in mid-week; while  Mata and Depay seem comfortable in their wide attacking-mi

1. Memphis What a perfect performance from the new-boy. Two excellent goals ( he was unlucky not to get a hat-trick ), and he sealed the night with the vital cross that met the mop of Fellaini - a highly important goal that has enabled us to go into the second leg with a two goal cushion. United fans have been waiting for this sort of performance for a while. Not just from Memphis, who up until last night hadn't quite set Old Trafford alight with his skill and flair as we had hoped following his signing from PSV in July - however the sort of dominating performance from a young, gifted, passionate individual that we have been longing for since Ronaldo left in 2009. There is no point dwelling on the Di Maria saga any longer - that is all in the past - however for me the disappointment that it didn't go according to plan after his big-money move from Real last summer outshines the bitterness of his exit earlier this month. With Di Maria's arrival United had hoped for a return

GOAL  | Sergio Romero It looks like the goalkeeping position will be Romero's  until the De Gea situation is sorted. According to some reports, even though  De-Gea bate Sergio Ramos is staying at Real , the move is back on with the United no.1 looking to be on his way to Spain . Focusing on Romero for a second, for someone caught so helplessly in the middle of van Gaal's very public battle between De Gea and Real Madrid, he is doing a very good job of staying focused and getting on with the task at hand. So enough about De Gea...please? Let's just try and develop this lad into a world-class 'keeper instead and (finally) bid farewell to David and the, ahem, charming  Edurne . DEFENCE  | Matteo Darmian, Chris Smalling, Daley Blind, Luke Shaw Again, a pretty safe bet these days. This will be the third game on the trot that the back four of Darmian , Smalling , Blind and Shaw have been paired together, and, like Romero, they will be looking to make it three clean-sheets in

The Cockney Red: What did you make of van Gaal's first season in charge? Republik of Mancunia :  It was a bit disappointing, particularly after the pre-season. The football was dreadful for large chunks of the season and after a period of great football, we just seemed to fizzle out at the end. We should have been going for second or third, but as soon as fourth looked safe, it’s as if they gave up. Still, we got a few good wins against our rivals, which was brilliant, and ultimately, achieved the key objective of finishing fourth. TCR: What do you make of the summer signings – Depay, Darmian, Schweinsteiger and Schneiderlin? RoM:  I like all of them. I had only seen Darmian at the World Cup but he seems to have settled in straight away, although looking better at right back than Valencia probably isn't too tricky! Schweinsteiger should have been bought five years ago, but you can't complain about having someone like him in the squad. Schneiderlin is just what we need in mi

1. Two wins out of two Our strong start to the season continued when we saw off Aston Villa last Friday evening with the sort of win we are rapidly (and annoyingly) becoming accustomed to. It was yet another ground-out, unattractive yet resilient performance - strong in possession (55%) however very poor in attacking prowess and creativity (only two shots on target). Of course, we'll take it if it means we carry on winning, however there were times our defence was stretched to the point you thought we were lucky not to concede. Had that been a Diego Costa/Alexei Sanchez-like player attacking the United goal, then we surely would have. So things certainly need to improve before we do start hitting the harder games. We need to remember that United do have a distinctly easier start to the season compared to our fellow title challengers - whereby Liverpool at home and Southampton away (both in September) are our toughest tests in the first seven games - therefore we need to capitalise

Check out this exclusive interview with United new boy Memphis Depay , who discusses his first couple of months at United. The interview was at the official launch of the partnership between Marathonbet and United.

GOAL  | Sergio Romero So the De Gea situation now appears to be heading in one direction - south. About 1,281 miles south to be precise. Yes indeed, that is the exact distance from Old Trafford to De Gea's new home in waiting, the Santiago Bernabeu. As with last week, the manager has said that Romero will play ahead of De Gea who is still ' not eager to play ' for United and so will not be considered again for selection until the transfer window shuts at the end of the month. Frankly I'm getting pretty sick of this now. By the sounds of things we are not happy with the offers that have come from Real's camp, so instead of dragging this out for the whole summer why has the resolution not been for him to stay for one more season by which time he can go for free next summer - keeping United happy that we'll have our best player for one more season, Real happy that they get their man for nothing, and De Gea happy because he get's his move? Seeing as we are now w

1. A great start to the season...but there's room for improvement Kyle Walker's o.g., after a well engineered United move, was enough for the win - one that has seen us gain an early advantage on Arsenal and Chelsea who both dropped points at the weekend. Yet United played pretty poorly at times, with Tottenham threatening the United goal far more than we did there's. As if it wasn't already obvious prior to kick-off that United needed needed strengthening in both defence and attack, then Blind's performance as a make-shift centre-back and Rooney's isolated, often lost, display up-front signaled more evidence for van Gaal and Woodward to get cracking during the remaining days of the transfer window. "Lucky United / "Unlucky Tottenham" was the general gist of the majority of post-match write-ups following United's season opener at Old Trafford. It took an own-goal to win us a game and indeed we were lucky to come out of the match with a clean s

The Cockney Red: What did you make of van Gaal’s first season in charge? United Rant: There is certainly an aura about Louis van Gaal that offers him much greater leeway than many coaches could expect. David Moyes might well look at the inconsistencies last season and the huge amount of money spent last summer, and wonder what might have been. The team only occasionally excelled last season – games against Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool and Manchester City come to mind when it really counted during the spring. But there is also much to be frustrated with as well. Van Gaal’s constant tinkering with personnel and systems has probably hindered, not helped, his side. There will be a time when tactical flexibility is a huge boon for United; during a period of rebuilding it looked very much like van Gaal simply couldn’t make his mind up. Then there was the unexplained tactical choices: retaining Rooney no matter how poor the captain’s performances, and benching Ander Herrera, Adnan Januzaj an

GOAL | David De Gea So who would have predicted this selection a couple of months ago?? As LVG looks set to begin his second season in charge of United, it looks like he's able to select De Gea , United's 2014/15 best player, in goal. The rumours are still persisting, unfortunately, with De Gea's girlfriend the latest person to spice up the situation. But with only three-and-a-half weeks remaining until the transfer window slams shut, we may just be able to hang on to the Spaniard for at least another season. DEFENSE | Matteo Darmian, Chris Smalling, Daley Blind, Luke Shaw Based on the pre-season friendlies it looks like Blind - who was last season's 'Jack of all trades...master of none' will be deployed at centre-back; presumably until Rojo has returned to full fitness? A more straight-forward selection at CB will be Chris 'Mike' Smalling , who van Gaal clearly holds in high regard after making him our second vice-captain after Carrick. The wing-backs