Grealish benched as United stick with five-man defence for Manchester derby

The Manchester derby is the first of five matches taking place on a slightly quieter-than-usual Saturday afternoon of Premier League football.

The omission of Jack Grealish from the City starting XI is perhaps the headline team news from the lunchtime clash at Old Trafford, with the benchings of Raheem Sterling and Riyad Mahrez rather more predictable given their relative lack of involvement on the domestic front over the last couple of months.

Ilkay Gundogan replaces the former Villa man in one of two changes that Pep Guardiola has made from Gameweek 10, with John Stones in for the suspended Aymeric Laporte his other alteration.

Kyle Walker is fit to start after taking a knock to his foot in midweek.

Raphael Varane‘s hamstring injury rules him out of the visit of United’s cross-city rivals, with Eric Bailly taking his place.

Victor Lindelof was a minor concern for this clash with a knock but is fit to take his place alongside Bailly and Harry Maguire in a three-man central defence, with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer seemingly opting for the same 3-4-1-2 – or, given the likelihood of them sitting back, 5-3-2 – set-up he has favoured in his side’s last two competitive matches.

The Norwegian had hinted at a few other injury doubts without naming names in his pre-match press conference and the Red Devils are indeed without another one of their starters from the 3-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur.

Edinson Cavani is the man to miss out, with Mason Greenwood starting in his stead.

Aside from those two enforced alterations, United are otherwise unchanged from last week.

Cristiano Ronaldo is the most selected player in Fantasy Premier League (FPL) for this encounter but his 31% ownership figure has to be taken with a pinch of salt, given the number of ‘ghost teams’ in FPL that tend to be drifting along three months into a campaign.

Among the top 10k, Ronaldo is the only United player with an ‘effective ownership’ (EO) above 1% for this fixture.

It’s Phil Foden and Joao Cancelo who are the most popular picks among the leading 10,000 managers, each boasting an EO of just over 62%.

GAMEWEEK 11 LINE-UPS

Man Utd XI: De Gea, Wan Bissaka, Bailly, Lindelof, Maguire, Shaw, Fernandes, McTominay, Fred, Greenwood, Ronaldo.

Subs: Henderson, Martial, Rashford, Lingard, Dalot, Sancho, Telles, Matic, Van de Beek.

Man City XI: Ederson, Walker, Dias, Stones, Cancelo, Silva, Gundogan, Rodri, De Bruyne, Jesus, Foden.

Subs: Steffen, Carson, Ake, Sterling, Grealish, Zinchenko, Fernandinho, Mahrez, Palmer.

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