Next Saturday, 8th of November 2014, the inconsistent Manchester United will entertain a Crystal Palace in need of points at the emblematic Old Trafford for round 11 of the English Premier League, a match that the Red Devils need to win in order to, at least, keep track of the trail of the teams who are currently on places that grant European football next season.

It is getting increasingly hard to put into words how confusing and discoordinated United’s team has been so far this season. All the money spent in new and quality players does not appear to have solve the problems of the Red Devils, as the team continues to display unbelievable levels of inconsistency.

Manchester United is yet to win a single match away from home this season and the scarce amount of wins in ten matches is tremendously worrying for a team of United’s calibre. Last Sunday, United failed again to put up a quality display and ended up by conceding their third defeat of the season, adding one more goal to the 13 they had already conceded before the match. Van Gaal built his team into a 4-4-1-1 style with Rooney working as some sort of Trequartista behind Robin Van Persie, in order to link the midfield and the attacking lines, but once again all his efforts were in vain, since the team’s biggest problem still resides in the defence, where it seems impossible to create routines among the players.

It is fair to say that this “new” United, although fairly different, is not much better than the one David Moyes guided last season. Regardless of the fact that it is not easy to build up a new team in just three or four months, it was, at least, expected that Van Gaal would have already managed to place the Red Devils among the top six teams of the EPL table.

For the important match against Crystal Palace, the Dutch manager will not be able to rely on the contribution of Smalling, who is suspended, and with Rojo, Jones, Evans, Young and Rafael, currently sidelined due to injury. The Colombian sharpshooter Radamel Falcao is also in doubt for the match, since he is not yet fully recovered from his recent injury.

As for Crystal Palace, things are also fairly complicated, with the Eagles currently on the 17th place of table with the same amount of points of Leicester, who are presently below the relegation line.

Last Monday night, Crystal Palace sucumbed at home at the hands of Sunderland on a match that was of the utmost importance for the team. The Eagles failed to win any of their last four matches and dropped several places on the table, because of that poor moment.

Despite both teams’ recent poor run, Manchester United are firm favourites to win next Saturday’s clash, especially if we think that their only pleasant performances so far this season have taken place in front of their supporters at Old Trafford.

Manchester United

Stats: W-2 L-2 D-1

Recent Form - LDDWW

Crystal Palace

Stats: W-1 L-3 D-1

Recent Form - LDLLW

Possible Line-ups

Manchester United (4-4-1-1) – De Gea - Valencia - McNair - Carrick - Shaw - Blind - Herrera - Di Maria - Fellaini - Rooney - Van Persie

Crystal Palace (4-4-1-1) – Speroni - Ward - Mariappa - Hageland - Kelly - McArthur - Puncheon - Ledley - Bolasie - Chamakh - Campbell

Prediction

Manchester United 2 Crystal Palace 1