There’s just one Premier League fixture this fine Tuesday night, as Manchester United look to strengthen their grip on the title with a visit up to St. James Park and Newcastle United. The Dugout Discussion chatroom has been opened, and offers you a place for your musings as the action unfolds.
As is unfortunately the norm nowadays, there have been one or two differing team sheets for tonight’s game being passed about on Twitter, but this is how they line-up…
Newcastle XI: Krul, Simpson, Williamson, Coloccini, Jose Enrique, Barton, Guthrie, Tiote, Gutierrez, Lovenkrands, Ameobi
Man United XI: Van der Sar, O’Shea, Smalling, Vidic, Evra, Nani, Carrick, Anderson, Giggs, Hernandez, Rooney
The home side are as predicted meaning that Tim Krul replaces the injured Steve Harper. Elsewhere, Cheik Tiote comes straight back into the Toon midfield, with banned Kevin Nolan missing out.
As for the visitors, Chris Smalling replacing Rio Ferdinand doesn’t come as a shock given the latter’s recent injury record. Neither is it a surprising that Luis Nani starts at the expense of Antonio Valencia. One piece of team news that does raise an eyebrow is the total omission of Dimitar Berbatov to the United squad, with no late injury news to report of as yet (EDIT: Sir Alex Ferguson says Berbatov “wasn’t feeling great” earlier today and is the reason why he misses out).
Oh, and Wayne Rooney (swear-jar in hand) takes his place alongside Javier Hernandez up front for the Reds.
