Next Saturday, 30th of August 2014, Manchester United will travel to Lancashire to measure forces with Burnley at Turf Moor for the third round of the English Premier League.

After a bad season start against Swansea at Old Trafford, United grabbed a humble draw from their visit to Sunderland and had apparently swept their slow home start under the rug. Nevertheless, United’s supporters nightmare is in fact far from over as the Red Devils were completely humiliated at Stadium MK last Tuesday night by losing to MK Dons 4-0 on a Capital One Cup match.

The team’s boss, Louis Van Gaal, is probably still wondering how will he be able to turn United’s fortunes around, especially after being mauled by MK Dons. It is certainly not easy, even for an experienced manager such as Van Gaal, to recover his players’ confidence levels after losing to a third tier team on a cup match, but the Dutchman needs to take a rabbit out of his hat and rally the troops for next Saturday’s clash at Turf Moor, where team with very low confidence levels will be waiting for them.

The arrival of the Argentinean internationals Di Maria and Rojo might be the boost United need to turn their luck around, although it might not be enough, as the team needs to be completely overhauled after some seasons (not just the last one) of inefficient renovation and low quality signings.

For the clash against Burnley, the Dutch head coach will not be able to count on the contribution of several injured players, as for example Luke Shaw, Ander Herrera, Fellaini and Michael Carrick.

As for Burnley, the Lancashire team is also far from being experiencing a good moment as they lost all their official matches this season, two for the Premier League and another one, last Tuesday, for the Capital One Cup. Burnley were caught by surprise at home by an ingenious Sheffield Wednesday that clinched the win on the 78th minute thanks to a goal from the Austrian striker Atdhe Nudiu from the penalty spot.

At the Premier League, after sucumbing to a well organized Chelsea on the opening round of the season, the Clarets were once again defeated on their travel to Wales, where they lost to Swansea.

The last time both sides met at Turf Moor was back in 2009 and Burnley won 1-0 back then. For the next Saturday’s match and despite all the problems United have been going through, they have to be considered favourites, although the way the team will react to last Tuesday’s humiliating defeat is still an enigma.

Burnley

Stats: W-1 L-3 D-1

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Manchester United

Stats: W-2 L-2 D-1

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Possible Line-ups

Burnley (4-4-2) –Heaton - Trippier - Duff - Shackell - Mee - Taylor - Marney - Jones - Arfield -  Ings - Jutkiewicz

Manchester United (3-5-2) – De Gea - Smalling - Jones - Evans - Young - Rafael - Fletcher - Cleverly - Mata - Rooney - Van Persie

Prediction

Burnley 1 Manchester United 2