Manchester United enter one of their biggest weeks of the season as they are preparing for two pivotal matches, against Juventus in the UEFA Champions League and against Manchester City in the English Premier League. And while everybody is probably thinking about the upcoming Derby, United must take care of their UCL match first. After all, The Red Devils sit in second place with four points and must take something away from Italy if they want to keep their qualifying chances intact.
With the Juventus game in mind, let’s analyse how Manchester United should lineup for that game. Particularly, we will focus on the attacking side of things since that’s where most of United’s problems are coming from.
Right Wing
This is, undoubtedly, United’s weakest position on the attacking end since they lack an specialist. Alexis Sanchez could play there, but we’ll touch base on the Chilean afterwards. With Marcus Rashford, Juan Mata and Jesse Lingard as alternatives, the latter could gain the starting nod thanks to his pace and explosiveness. Mata could work better on a midfield role due to his vision, while Rashford can act as a secondary alternative coming off the bench. The young Englishman can certainly change a game when coming off the bench focused.
Left Wing
Anthony Martial has been tearing it up of late, and there is absolutely no reason to remove the Frenchman off the starting XI. He scored once again at Bournemouth, and has been – by far – United’s best player over the past few weeks. He’ll need to be at his best to penetrate Juventus’ stellar defensive line but if anyone can do it in this moment, it’s him.
Centre Forward
There is no clarity on whether Romelu Lukaku will be available for this game or not after missing last week’s encounter against Bournemouth. However, if the Belgian does not play, then this could be Alexis’ chance to silence his critics. The Chilean already knows what is like to play on a central role, since he used to it often at Arsenal. He is also coming off a decent effort against Bournemouth in which he recorded an assist. Last but not least, he already knows Juventus since he used to play in the Serie A. He might not be at his best, but this is a game where he could begin his turnaround.
And you? How would you assemble the starting attacking line against Juventus this Wednesday?
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