Brentford vs Manchester United: Match Preview & Prediction

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Manchester United have not started the season the way they wanted. Their opening loss 2-1 at the hands of Brighton has already shown too many negatives in display of Erik ten Hag’s team. The Dutchman’s competitive debut at Old Trafford was not a good one, with his team losing the game to a supposedly weaker side way to easily. The character and attitude of the team was not ideal and now the Red Devils need to make some important improvements for the second game of the campaign. They will be facing Brentford away and nothing but the three points will be good enough this time.

Team News

Brentford will not be complete for this match, as they will have at least three players out of action. Kristoffer Ajer, Ethan Pinnock and Sergi Canos are all unavailable for Man United’s visit.

These news should not be of too great of importance to United, who will need to win whatever the circumstances at Brentford. Ten Hag will be without Anthony Martial once again, as that was the case last weekend as well. Among the injured players are Victor Lindelof, Brandon Williams and Facundo Pellistri, although the latter two were never really going to start anyway. Cristiano Ronaldo is expected to start after remaining on the bench for Ten Hag’s first starting lineup in a competitive match. We could see Scott McTominay lose out on his place in the starting eleven, considering his abysmal performance against Brighton. This could give way to a change of system as well, with Ten Hag employing Ronaldo as a proper number nine, rather than having Christian Eriksen be the false one.

Form Guide

Manchester United are clearly not in great form, even though the new season has just started. The mood around the club is already at a very low level, following the 2-1 loss in the opening round against Brighton. United’s performance was really poor, conceding two goals in the span of 10 minutes and then never fully recovering from it. This poor result mounted on the already edgy atmosphere around Man United, which was in big part thanks to the club’s poor job in the transfer market, Ronaldo’s eagerness to leave the club and perennial wait for any kind of silverware. That is why United will be in need of a really positive performance on Saturday.

Brentford started the season better than United, as they held Leicester to a 2-2 draw away from home. In fact, 46 minutes into the match and the Foxes had a 2-0 lead, but Brentford came back through Ivan Toney and Josh Dasilva goals later on. Not a bad start of the season for the Bees.

Predicted Outcome

This will be an intriguing matchup, with Brentford wanting to prove to Christian Eriksen he should have stayed with them instead of choosing the Red Devils. We predict Manchester United will win 2-1. This will probably not be a pretty performance from Ten Hag’s team, who are still clearly way off reaching the necessary form. But the quality in the squad is there to at least start working towards some improvements.

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