Still Following the Trawler

1. Rooney and Jesse - while one continues to falter, the other continues to flourish Yet another poor display from Rooney, United's captain and most important player. A lot of has been made about van Gaal's tactics and the way the team lines-up working against Rooney and his style, but for me, given that we're nearly a third of the way into the season now and we're still talking about him and his lack of influence in games, while Martial continues to impress (this time playing up-front with Rooney in the withdrawn role), he clearly cannot impact games like he used to. On a positive note, Saturday's 2-0 win against a Stoke was largely a result of the brilliant display from local boy Jesse Lingard. Since he was given his debut by van Gaal on the first day of last season (the manager's first competitive game in charge of United) he exited his plans almost as quickly as he entered them - coming off injured after only 24 minutes of that game and going out on loan in ...

GOAL  | David de Gea DEFENCE  | Ashley Young, Chris Smalling, Daley Blind, Marcos Rojo After picking up his fifth booking of the season against Crystal Palace Matteo Darmian will sit this one out due to suspension, while Valencia and Phil Jones look to be injured. As per the CSKA game on Tuesday evening I think van Gaal will opt for Young at right-back again with  Blind in the centre, partnering Mike Smalling .  Rojo is doing a fine job replacing the long-term injured Luke Shaw at left back. MIDFIELD  | Jesse Lingard, Morgan Schneiderlin, Ander Herrera, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Memphis Depay Jesse Lingard 's recent (and surprising) inclusion has been a breath of fresh air during what has been a strangely unadventurous, dull spell for United – with the manager favouring a defensive, pedestrian style over attacking football in recent games. Just look at the below table (via 90min.com ) highlighting our low number of shots vs. Premier League opponents, wh...

Hernandez's 8th goal of the season on 75 minutes gives United our second away win of the season. Good. It's that time again... Chico time! Yep, that's right, the little Mexican green garden vegetable, who I'm sure you've noticed has been out of the limelight for a while now as Fergie insists upon  partnering   Rooney with Berbs (as an adamant show of faith rather than a favouring of form), once again did his best Ole impression and saved our arses again. Wazza's off the mark. SAF probably took it a bit too far and in the process fooled noone by calling Rooney's performance 'world class'  against West Brom, but at least he's finally decided the right thing to do after moaning his way into a new contract is to actually start hitting the net. I somehow can't see him repeating 26 league goals this season (w ith only two goals in 11 league appearances so far) , but it's a start. Still unbeaten - and still capitalising on the bad results of ot...

...or '10 reasons why our season is over'. 1. The ever reliable Pat – one of last seasons most reliable players – is having a shocker, with Saturday’s own goal the icing on the shit filled cake that is his season. When he's off form, you take out the most determined, energetic and attack-minded player in that back four. And without him, we lose one of the most potent routes to attack that we posses. 2.  The OVER reliable Van der sar – one of our most reliable players. Period – dropped a howler that apparently hasn’t been seen since the days he was bossing the streets of Voorhout as an abnormally tall kid. When the one player you never expect to mess up does, you know things aren’t going good. 3.  Giggs is out with a hamstring injury . Again.  4.  When Giggs went off, we were completely exposed and lacked any options on the wings. With no natural wingers to replace Giggsy, now is when will see the impact of Valencia ’s injury. 5.  The ‘Rooney’s off’ rumours...