Sir Alex Please Pick Players On Form Alone!

So Manchester United entered 2012 depleted by injuries after a loss to a team who came to Old Trafford to put up the shutters, aiming for a point. What is there to do?

Firstly we should focus on picking a formation and players who are used to each position and who are in form. For me that means Patrice Evra, Wayne Rooney and David De Gea lose their places on form alone.

Given that Nemanja Vidic is injured, and that Jonny Evans is out too, we need a back 5 of Anders Lindegard, Chris Smalling, Phil Jones, Rafael and Ezekiel Fryers. I don’t see any value in Michael Carrick continuing to prove he isn’t a centre back or for playing Antonio Valencia back there.

In midfield Anderson and Carrick are fine, with Nani and Valencia wide.

Danny Welbeck and Dimitar Berbatov up top with Javier Hernandez in reserve are enough for me.

The bench of Ryan Giggs, Rooney, Paul Pogba, Ravel Morrison or Will Keane is enough knowing Valencia can drop if we have an injury back there.

4-4-2 is the way; we have to win away from home quite a lot to take the title so we may as well start here.

January is a month of sales and I’d buy some strong squad players in this round.

Clearly we see some players like Gary Cahill, Cheick Tiote and Jack Rodwell who would improve us as a squad but the key positions remain left-back and attacking midfield where we can’t depend on Evra and Tom Cleverley to be our only players who fill those roles.

This month should see the end of Darren Gibson and our Polish keeper, who’s name I can’t spell.

Berbatov is staying and so we need to strengthen midfield and left side defence.

As for those with loss of form the list grows. Evra, Rooney, Hernandez and Ashley Young are the most obvious players who need form to return and they should all play against City in the Cup to see how our B team does with Morrison, Pogba and Keane all given a game.

I’d make the Cup team as follows:

De Gea

Rafael, Jones, Smalling, Fryers

Park, Morrison, Pogba, Young

        Rooney, Hernandez

Keane on the bench and on at half-time or playing for Young if he is still injured.

Park Ji-Sung could help the younger lads as we play 4-5-1 with Rooney deeper than normal so he gets lots of the ball.

Results in the 2 games should be 2-1 win at Newcastle and 1-1 away to City.

I would take those results right now!!!!

Sir Alex pick on form and position…please!

By Steve Burrows CBE @ifollowsteve

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