United XI to face Brighton confirmed
Manchester United's team to take on Brighton and Hove Albion in the Premier League has been confirmed, as we embark on our penultimate game of the season.
Ralf Rangnick has opted for an unchanged XI that started our last outing against Brighton, as we look to end the 2021/22 campaign on a positive note.
Both Juan Mata and Nemanja Matic start once more after impressing against Brentford.
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Eric Bailly misses out on the substitutes bench, with back problems presenting an issue for the Ivorian in the last few days. Teenager Alejandro Garnacho also makes the bench once more, following his debut against Chelsea just nine days ago.
On his unchanged XI, Ralf said: “I have no reason to change anything, I know Harry would have wanted to play but we have other games Harry played and either Rapha Varane or Lindelof didn’t play. This is part of the game and we have a good couple of central defenders and as I said I decided not to change anything.
"It’s the same really [with Fred], I know how important Fred can be and especially defensive not as well offensively. We did well, Nemanja played well, Scotty played well, so we decided to have Fred on the bench and it's pretty likely that he will come on during the game.”
Reflecting on last week's win over Brentford at Old Trafford, the interim manager added: “I think in possession, that was probably one of our best games. I agree we still have some spaces that we didn’t cover defensively at times but in total I think that was really a convincing performance. The same kind of performance today, we’re playing away against a very flexible team, a very technical team. We know that from the first half when we played them a couple of months ago at home. So we need to be compact, very close together and hopefully having our counterattack moments.”
United: De Gea; Telles, Lindelof, Varane, Dalot; Matic, McTominay; Elanga, Mata, Fernandes (c), Ronaldo.
Substitues: Henderson, Fernandez, Jones, Maguire, Wan-Bissaka, Fred, Lingard, Cavani, Garnacho.
Brighton: Sanchez; Cucurella, Dunk (c), Veltman; March, Bissouma, Caicedo, Trossard; Gross, Mac Allister, Welbeck.
Substitues: Steele, Lamptey, Webster, Maupay, Lallana, Alzate, Duffy, Offiah, Ferguson.