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31 min: Shaw crosses from the left. Weghorst rises high, 12 yards out, and aims a header towards the top right. The ball sails harmlessly over the bar.
29 min: Guehi and Hughes confuse each other, allowing Antony to dribble down the right. Antony attempts to slip Fernandes clear, but Fernandes hasn’t read his intention and runs away from the ball. The attack over in ignominious fashion, Antony proceeds to give his team-mate pelters. The bickering goes on just long enough for the home faithful to catch on and give Antony the bird. All good pantomime fun.
27 min: Antony and Mitchell get involved with each other on the right flank. Antony feels he’s been needlessly flung to the ground when shepherding the ball out for a throw. Mitchell does not agree. The pair square up. For a second, it looks like it’s on, but team-mates and officials quickly swarm them before they do anything daft. Just a ticking off, nothing more.
25 min: All a bit scrappy right now. “Bruno is fascinating,” writes Mary Waltz. “Pre CR7 he was amazing. He seemed to shrink after Cristiano arrived, assuming a servile attitude as on the national team. And since his departure a return to quality.”
23 min: Martinez miscontrols and nearly allows Mateta to race clear on goal. Varane spots the danger and nips in to roll the ball back to De Gea. United then counter, Varane passing long down the right. Mitchell and Guehi dither on the edge of their box, leaving the ball to each other. Antony nips in between then and chips over the out-of-position Guaita. Palace are very fortunate that his effort drifts harmlessly into the side netting. What a fiasco that would have been.
Antony goes close to opening the scoring. Photograph: Dave Shopland/REX/Shutterstock21 min: While play was stopped, Fernandes was deep in conversation with Weghorst. His fingers throwing tactical shapes. Has he spotted something? Let’s see if they combine later.
19 min: Martinez took a rare old whack there. It looks like a cut rather than a concussion. His forehead is ostentatiously wrapped in tape. A quick change of shirt and he’s back on.
17 min: Mateta and Martinez compete for a bouncing ball in the middle of the park. Mateta wins the header, by fighting his way in front of Martinez. In doing so, he accidentally elbows Martinez in the face. Down he goes, and on comes the physio.
16 min: Shaw is this close to scoring with a screamer. Wan-Bissaka reaches the byline on the right and dinks a cross that evades everyone in the middle. It drops to Shaw, coming in from the left. He meets it first time and creams a rising drive across Guaita and inches wide of the right-hand post. That would have been some goal.
14 min: Olise has a bit of space down the right, and Mateta, Zaha and Edouard lined up along the front of United’s six-yard box. But his cross is too high, too deep. Goal kick. A decent delivery, and Palace would surely have put De Gea to work.
13 min: The United fans are now giving Patrick Vieira the what-for to the tune of Volare. You’ll remember why. Tonight they’re gonna party like it’s 1999.
11 min: Fernandes wedges a lovely pass down the middle of the park to release Rashford, who chips tamely into Guaita’s arms when one on one with the keeper. No real harm done, as the flag then pops up for a fairly obvious offside. “I can’t help thinking Weghorst would have been a better loan signing for Chelsea than Felix,” writes true blue Julian Menz. “You can have all the tricksy wingers/second strikers you want, but it’s pointless if players who thrive playing off a striker don’t have a striker to play off (see Havertz).”
9 min: Fernandes crosses from the left. Guaita stoops to gather but spills. Hughes and Guehi faff about with the ball between them. Eventually, with Weghorst lurking, Hughes batters clear. Both sides have looked jittery at the back during these early exchanges.
8 min: The in-form Rashford nearly makes space to shoot at the end of a lively run down the inside-left channel. But just as he cocks the hammer, Clyne extends a toe to poke clear.
7 min: Zaha lays off to Mitchell on the left. He fires low and hard into the United box. Fernandes traps at the far stick, with a view to clearing calmly. He’s almost too calm, as Olise is this close to stealing the ball off his toe. But Fernandes gets the benefit of the bounce, and is able to get the job done eventually.
6 min: The away fans run through their Eric Cantona songbook, as you always knew they would. Twenty-eight years ago, though! How did that happen so quickly? Eh?
4 min: Olise and Mateta flick the ball on down the middle for Edouard, who would have had space to shoot from the edge of the D had he not stepped on the ball and left it behind him.
3 min: A rare old atmosphere at Selhurst Park. Both sets of fans are giving it plenty.
1 min: Before the match, Ten Hag was insistent that United won’t be pumping cross after cross towards the 6ft 6in Weghorst, but within 50 seconds Wan-Bissaka is looking for him with a looper from the right. Palace clear their lines without too much fuss.
Wout Weghorst looks to get on the end of a cross. Photograph: Matthew Ashton/AMA/Getty ImagesCrystal Palace kick off. They’re kicking towards the Sainsbury’s, sort of, in this half. “When Adam Griffiths is Emperor, would he please ensure the right back and not the left back is named immediately after the goalie (see below)?” asks Colum Farrelly, spotting that, come the Griffolution, your po’ MBM hack would be the one of the first sent to the big house.
The teams are out. Palace wear their red and blue squiggles, while United are bedecked from head to toe in white. Casemiro, once of Real Madrid, looks very much at home. We’ll be off in a minute or two. “The scariest thing about that Eric Cantona kung-fu pic is the guy in black to the right of the ‘victim’,” writes Peadar from Poland. “Not only is he completely unfazed but he has the same colour eyes as the bogey man who lived under my bed when I was a nipper.”
Erik ten Hag is asked by Sky whether the arrival of Wout Weghorst changes anything. “Nothing. It changes nothing. Obviously he is a different profile, but he’s a typical number nine, so it fits good with Antony, Bruno and Marcus Rashford. I don’t think Wout Weghorst is the player for only crosses. We are aware [that a booking for Casemiro means he’ll miss the trip to Arsenal at the weekend] but it is about today. Obviously we don’t want him to get booked, but it’s about winning today. I am looking forward, it is great to play here, it is always really loud. I like it! Perfect.”
Patrick Vieira talks to Sky Sports. “It’s a big blow [to be without Joachim Andersen] because he is an important player for us. But we have players who can fill that spot, and today Chris Richards will have an opportunity to show his talent. The frustration is when people tell you that you play well, but you don’t manage to win games. We don’t want to be the team who produce good football but don’t win. That has to change. We want to play well, of course, that is how we want to approach the games, but football is about winning. It is important for us to understand that when we have opportunities, we have to take them, especially against big teams when you may not create a lot. We have to show more character and desire. United is a different team. This year they have found a way to play well and win. They are consistent. But with our support, we know we can beat any team. So it’s about us to perform. The support will be there. We have to go for it.”
Team-news news. Adam Griffiths is irked, people, and the social-media gurus at Old Trafford are the ones to blame. “When I am emperor of football, any team that announces their line-up in squad number order rather than position order (as Man Utd have done tonight) gets deducted three points and has to play the next game wearing the lost and found from the PE cupboard at the local comp. It entroubulates me something fierce.”
In lieu of Adam’s progressive new law coming into effect, here’s a reminder of what the Premier League table currently looks like without it. United can go second with a win tonight, while Palace are looking for three points that’d nudge them a little closer to the top half. (For the record, if Adam was Grand Mufti of All Soccer, or whatever it is he’s demanding, United would be bottom, four points adrift of 19th-placed Southampton.)
Team news: debuts for Richards and WeghorstCrystal Palace make four changes to the starting XI named for the 1-0 defeat at Chelsea on Sunday. In come Will Hughes, Odsonne Edouard, Jean-Philippe Mateta and, making his league debut for Palace, USA international Chris Richards. Jordan Ayew, Ebrechi Eze and Jeffrey Schlupp drop to the bench, while Joachim Andersen is out with a calf problem.
Manchester United give a debut to the on-loan Burnley striker Wout Weghorst. He’s one of three changes to the team named to start the Manchester derby, with Lisandro Martinez returning to central defence (Luke Shaw returns to his regular left-back beat) and Antony rejoining the attack. Fred and Tyrell Malacia drop to the bench, with Anthony Martial missing out through injury.
The teamsCrystal Palace: Guaita, Mitchell, Guehi, Richards, Clyne, Hughes, Doucoure, Edouard, Olise, Mateta, Zaha.
Subs: Johnstone, Ward, Tomkins, Riedewald, Milivojevic, Schlupp, Ozoh, Ayew, Eze.
Manchester United: De Gea, Shaw, Martinez, Varane, Wan-Bissaka, Casemiro, Eriksen, Rashford, Fernandes, Antony, Weghorst.
Subs: Heaton, Lindelof, Maguire, Malacia, McTominay, Fred, Pellistri, Elanga, Garnacho.
🚨 Tonight’s team news is in — and there’s a United debut for Wout Weghorst! 🇳🇱#MUFC || #CRYMUN
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) January 18, 2023 PreambleCrystal Palace are looking to snap a three-game losing streak, while Manchester United are hoping to make it ten wins in a row. An important game, for sure … but really, we’re all thinking about this, aren’t we?
‘An early bath for you, Mr Cantona!’ Photograph: Action Images/ReutersExactly one week short of 28 years ago, that happened. God we’re getting old. Kick off is at 8pm GMT. It’s on!