Gameday: Stoke vs. United

The 411:
United take on Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium tonight after a less than impressive win against Bursaspor in midweek. That game also came after a weak 2-2 draw against West Brom last weekend.

Chasing the Title:
Guys, I'm gonna level with you... we're playing like crap. I know I'm being captain obvious but just LOOK at that league table... we are 6th behind Tottenham, West Brom, and City. A win tonight would push us up to 4th at least. Not what we want come season's end, but I'll take it over 6th any day.

Where We Stand:


2|Man City|8P|7GD|17PTS
3|Tottenham|9P|3GD|15PTS
4|West Brom|9P|-2GD|15PTS
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5|Arsenal|8P|8GD|14PTS
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6|United|8P|7GD|14PTS


Enemy Form:
Stoke are currently 13th in the table and are L-W-L in their last three games. Personally, I think they are outdoing themselves this year and their mid-table position in the table reflects that. That being said, they will be looking to attack us and exploit the weaknesses that we've shown over the start of this season.

Players to Look Out For:
Stoke's secret weapon will come in the form of Kenwyne Jones. After impressing last year alongside Darren Bent at Sunderland, K-Jones has become Stoke's main man upfront and is their top scorer with 4 goals in all competitions. Usually I would assume that our defense would have everything under control, but judging by how terrible we've done these past few games, I think that we need to pay extra attention to those game-changers like Kenwyne Jones.

As for us, I think that Nani will be on fire for us tonight. I donno what it is, but I just have this feeling that he's gonna do something special and we're gonna love it.

On the Home Front:
Rooney is in the media spotlight but out of this game because of an injury brought upon by Paul Scholes in training. Attaboy Scholesy... teaching Rooney that the name on the front of the shirt is bigger than the name on the back of it. The usual suspects, Valencia and Hargreaves, are also unavailable. Besides that, Giggs, Jevans, and Owen are not going to be involved tonight.

I know many of you have already guessed this, but I'm a big Obertan fan and it's been a bummer for me that he hasn't been playing regularly. So I think I'm gonna have to start some kind of competition... if Obertan doesn't start tonight, we're all gonna take guesses on the next league game that he starts and the winner will get a prize (NB. TSR has the right to award lame and/or non-existent prizes). If no one guesses the correct date, the person with the guess closest to the actual date will be the winner.

TSR's Thoughts
1. Will we concede any soft goals tonight?
2. 4-4-2 or 4-3-3?
3. Hey, I just realized we'll be wearing our alternate kits tonight!

We gotta fight, for our right... to PAAAAARTYY!!!


P.s. I can't upload photos for some reason, so text all the way!