Manchester United continue their UEFA Europa League campaign with a long trip to Russia as they face FK Rostov on Thursday in the first leg of their last-sixteen tie. The two teams have never met before and also FK Rostov have never faced a team from England in a European competition. Manchester United have lost just one match against Russian opposition, that was the 2-1 UEFA Super Cup loss to Zenit St Petersburg in 2008.
FK Rostov have reached the knockout rounds of the Europa League after finishing third in their Champions League group behind Bayern Munich and Atletico Madrid. They did record a historic result in the last group match as they defeated Bayern Munich 3-2 in Russia. Last week they recorded a 6-0 away victory at Tomsk in the Russian league but they are in seventh place in the table. First-choice goalkeeper Soslan Dzhanaev has been out since December and will most likely spend some more time on the sidelines.
Manchester United have not lost a match since January, that's a streak of nine matches unbeaten in all competitions and with nine wins collected in the process. However, last week they were held to a 1-1 draw by Bournemouth at Old Trafford, a result which saw them drop to sixth place in the Premier League table. Man United have a big match against Chelsea just four days after this clash, so manager Jose Mourinho might choose to rest a few players. Eric Bailly is suspended, while Henrikh Mkhitaryan has just recovered from injury.
Probable line-ups:
Rostov: Medvedev - Mevlja, Navas, Granat - Kalachev, Erokhin, Gatcan, Noboa, Kudryashov - Bukharov, Azmoun
Man United: Romero - Valencia, Jones, Smalling, Blind - Herrera, Carrick - Mata, Pogba, Rashford - Ibrahimovic
My prediction: 1-1 draw.
Here are the odds for the match at Bet365:
Rostov win - 5.25
Draw - 3.60
Man United win - 1.80
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Comments (1)
sharpe
03/09/17, 10:03:08 PM
Right prediction there Johnny, well done! I think it was a decent performance for United in Russia, on a really poor pitch there, I know it's very tough climate...
Right prediction there Johnny, well done! I think it was a decent performance for United in Russia, on a really poor pitch there, I know it's very tough climate there but still I don't know how UEFA have so many requirement about stadium conditions as a whole but not so many obviously for the playing grounds it selves. That didn't influenced the end score though.
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