23 Sept 2021
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A defeat during the week for Man Utd against West Ham in the League Cup means that Ole Gunnar Solksjaer has now failed to win any of his last 25 competitions he’s been involved with as Cardiff City, Molde and Man Utd manager since picking up the Norwegian Cup back in 2013.
Villa also crashed out of the cup on penalties to Chelsea, but that won’t disappoint Dean Smith too much with the Premier League their main focus this season.
They currently sit in 10th place in the table after the opening five matches and with only Chelsea earlier this month and Watford at the start of the season getting the better of them, they’ll fancy their chances of taking the game to the Red Devils.
The Manchester outfit have been extremely poor in their cup games to date, losing to both the Young Boys in the Champions League and the Hammers in the Carabao Cup, but their league form has been impressive.
They’ve won four of their five unbeaten outings but you could argue their fixture list has been kind to them, with only West Ham who they’ve faced so far currently sitting outside the bottom six of the league, while that Hammers game saw Mark Noble miss a penalty in stoppage time to level the scores.
Bruno Fernandes To Score Anytime
The hosts have won their two home games this term 5-1 and 4-1, as Bruno Fernandes has chipped in with four goals over those two fixtures at Old Trafford.
That is the type of goalscoring form that should frighten any team travelling to this stadium this term and we’d expect the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Fernandes to put on a show.
Indeed, the striker has six goals from his last four matches for club and country and with the form he’s in, he looks a shoo-in to get on the scoreboard yet again.
All four meetings between the two sides have featured more than two goals since Villa’s promotion back to the Premier League for the 2019/20 season, with Man Utd winning three of the four unbeaten clashes.
Fernandes got on the scoreboard in all the last three of those and although there are question marks over who’ll be the designated penalty taker, he still has the ability to score by other means.
Man United To Win And Over 2.5 Goals
The Clarets following the acquisition of Danny Ings look more than capable of grabbing a goal too.
Only six teams have netted more than their eight strikes this term, as Ings has had a hand in half those strikes and that only helps the case of this being a high scoring encounter.
In fact, the Red Devils have seen at least three goals in 11 of their last 13 outings here since beating their opponents 2-1 at the start of the year, averaging over four goals per game over that period.
PREDICTIONS:
BRUNO FERNANDES TO SCORE ANYTIME
MAN UNITED TO WIN AND OVER 2.5 GOALS
BRUNO FERNANDES TO SCORE ANYTIME
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