Next Sunday, 24th August 2014, Manchester United will travel to the Stadium of Light to measure forces with Sunderland for Round 2 of the English Premier League.

After an almost flawless pre-season campaign, Manchester United started the English Premier League off on the wrong foot by losing at Old Trafford to Swansea 2-1. Louis Van Gaal’s debut at English football couldn’t have been any worse as the ghosts of last season's catastrophe seemed to have taunted his players throughout the entire match. United looked fairly uninspired for large periods of the match and even the large number of injured players cannot serve as an escape goat for such failure.

The Dutch manager presented his usual 3-5-2 formation with Hernández in the place of Van Persie up at the front and with Young and Lingard acting as wing backs because of the injuries of Rafael, Valencia and Luke Shaw. Apart from the young academy products, Ander Herrera was the only new face at the pitch and the lack of new arrivals may certainly have been an upsetting factor for the experienced Dutch head coach.

For the match against Sunderland, Van Gaal is certainly hoping to have a few more players at his disposal and he might as well count on the return of Robin Van Persie, who missed the entire pre-season due to injury.

As for Sunderland, the Black Cats will take on a somewhat fragilized United after granting a draw at West Brom in the dying moments of the match. Gus Poyet’s boys had a good start and grabbed an early lead thanks to a long range effort from Lee Cattermole but after that they experienced some difficulties in sustaining the Baggies’ game flow.

The team’s boss, Gus Poyet, was fairly upset after the match because of the penalty awarded against Sunderland but at the same time he was very happy with the late equalizer and with his players’ performances, especially during the second-half.

For the clash against Manchester United, the Uruguayan manager is not yet certain if he will be able to count on the contribution of the versatile Italian winger Emanuele Giaccherini, who missed the first match of the season due to a groin injury.

The last time both sides went head-to-head at the Stadium of Light was back in January for the Capital One Cup and the Black Cats claimed a 2-1 win thanks to a Borini’s goal from the penalty spot and an own goal from Ryan Giggs.

Manchester United might be considered favourites for next Sunday’s clash, although they will need to do a lot better than they did against Swansea if they want to take something positive from the match.

Sunderland

Stats: W-2 L-1 D-2

Recent Form - DDLWW

Manchester United

Stats: W-4 L-1 D-0

Recent Form - LWWWW

Possible Line-ups

Sunderland (4-4-2) – Mannone - Brown - van Aanholt - O’Shea - Roberge - Cattermole - Larsson - Johnson - Rodwell - Fletcher - Wickham

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

Prediction

Sunderland 1 Manchester United 2