Man United vs Crystal Palace Prediction: A challenge for the "Red Devils"

Is Man United good without Christian Eriksen?

After the Danish midfielder was injured and had to sit out for 2 months, the Manchester United midfield lacked a " cards- dividing" and playing style factor. This forced Erik ten Hag and the board to urgently add Marcel Sabitzer.

Whether the Bayern Munich star will start in this match or not is no longer an open question, but Ten Hag showed some positive signals about this at the pre-match press conference. Sabitzer is a versatile player, playing in many positions in attack, so on this front, Man United can rest assured if the Austrian star is present.

The return of Jadon Sancho and Ten Hag's smile signalled a good thing for many "Red Devils" fans. Their attack will be more diverse and stronger in theory. With Marcus Rashford's extremely high form, Ten Hag does not need to have too much headaches about personnel quality.

The reason for the concerns for the Old Trafford team is that Crystal Palace have only won 1 of their last 5 meetings (2 draws and 2 losses). In the final match of last season, Ten Hag saw how bad M.U were when they lost to Palace. In the first leg, his team also could not beat this tough opponent. In the context of being able to catch up with Tottenham, Man United need to cut the back of Spurs to confidently enter the knockout rounds with Barcelona in the Europa League.

Crystal Palace promises to be a surprise

If Brighton and Brentford are no longer shocking phenomena when they have proven their discomfort, the team closest to them in this regard is Palace. Patrick Vieira's side could lose to bottom-placed sides but could also beat or hold the top teams.

Palace can be confident with this away match because not long ago (January 19), they held Man United to a draw at home. After that, the "Gunners" also caused Newcastle to share the points. Not losing to 2 teams in the Top 4 for 2 consecutive matches shows that confidence is a surplus for the London team.

Since the draw with M.U in round 20 until now, there have not been many changes in personnel and form on both sides, so Palace can take examples from the first leg to capitalise for tonight's confrontation. 7 points after the last 4 away matches at Old Trafford is not a bad result for the home team Selhurst Park.

Palace are in a slowdown, after this match they will face Brighton, Brentford and Liverpool in turn. These are opponents who are not too strong but not weaker than Vieira and his team at the moment. The only problem is that the London capital team's attack is having some problems as it has drawn 6/9 recent matches, scoring only 18 goals in 20 matches (an average of less than 1 goal/match).