Andy's Tuesday tips - Man Utd to take draw
When the draw for the last 16 was made, all of the big guns would have been hoping to draw Schalke because of their relative inexperience at this stage of the competition and poor domestic form. Two rounds later and the German outfit are still in it and, given the quality of the opposition they've knocked out to get here, they have to be respected.
Raul may be past his best but his pedigree at this level can't be doubted and they have other fine players in the form of Christoph Metzelder, Jefferson Farfan and goalkeeper Manuel Neuer. One thing is for sure though, Manchester United would have settled for drawing them for their semi-final tie over Real Madrid or Barcelona.
The first thing we need to consider is how Sir Alex Ferguson will set his team up for this match. Experience of watching Manchester United away from home over these years would suggest a 4-5-1 is the most likely formation to be employed with Wayne Rooney as either the lone striker or as a roaming attacking midfielder with Javier Hernandez, who has been brilliant in the Champions League, as the more advanced player.
Of course Sir Alex may go with both of them upfront which has worked pretty well of late but as ever, we'll have to wait and see. I've already touched on Schalke's relative inexperience at this level but the same can't be said of Manchester United. Under the Scot, they have been here countless times before and they've seen it all before.
My gut instinct is that the visitors would happily settle for any sort of scoreline along the lines of 0-0 or 1-1; even a one-goal deficit wouldn't be seen as disastrous by any means given how much confidence the Reds have in winning matches at Old Trafford.
I don't expect this particular game to be any different from all the Champions League away first legs we've seen in the past and I expect it to be low-scoring, yes at times slow, and for Manchester United to be in a comfortable position at the end of the first 90 minutes.
Recommended Bets:
Back the draw at [3.3]
Back the 1-1 draw at [7.4]
Back Javier Hernandez to score at any time at [3.35] if he starts
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Published: 26 Apr 2011
flops (April 26, 2011 4:09 PM) said:
I wont be surprise to see Park Ji Sung behind Rooney and the lil mexican legume on the bench, only to come in at 70th minute. I ll go with 1-1 with an unlikely goal scorer...maybe Vidic or Anderson with a lucky deflection