Man Utd won their last Premier League match 4-0 against Norwich and it will take a dramatic loss of form to enable anyone to catch them by the end of the season . Norwich were the last team to beat Man Utd in the Premier League ..a 1-0 defeat back in November ...there was to be no repeat though at Old Trafford as the league leaders showed why they are clear favourites to regain the title .


Reading lost to Everton 3-1 and it proved to be the last league game in charge for manager Brian McDermott , the man who won the January manager of the month departed after owner Anton Zingarevich felt a change was necessary after Reading had slipped to 2nd bottom in the table . Whover is put in charge they face a daunting firts few games .

Incorrect. We lost 2-1 at home to Villa, which obviously proved to be McDermott's last game in charge.

Anyway, you can read my thoughts on that sacking in the other thread.

A trip to Old Trafford is obviously not idea after such an eventful week. It's becoming quite apparent that we will not have a replacement lined up in time to take charge of this game, so, with McDermott's assistant Nigel Gibbs also having been relieved of his duties, Academy boss Eamonn Dolan will assume caretaker charge.

Given the way things are going, I'd be happy to keep it just below a cricket score.

oops ... yes ..what a howler ..thank you for correcting me .

It will be almost mission impossible for Reading to get anything from this game , Man Utd are not ones who will likely take it easy against you ...but it all depends on the players ..if they believe they can get a result then it may well be possible ..

So....5-1 to Man Utd is my prediction .

We did alright in the FA Cup game a few weeks ago, giving United a bit of a battle and eventually only losing 2-1, but we've lost one or two to injury since then and obviously the preparation and focus will be hugely affected by the events of this week.


It's a bit of a nothing game for us in one sense. Us nicking a point would be superb but immensely unlikely. We are expected to be heavily beaten, so anything other than that is a bonus. This is likely to be Eamonn Dolan's only game in charge on a caretaker basis, unless by some miracle we get a decent result which might even put him into the frame for the job.


How many we lose by will probably largely depend on who is in goal. Federici has been missing for the last couple of games with a persistent injury, and with McCarthy having sat out the last few months we have been forced to rely on third choice 'keeper and professional substitute Stuart Taylor, which is obviously far from ideal. He's mostly done okay, but was partly at fault for Villa's second on Saturday and although he hasn't made any enormous gaffes in those two games, he always looks a little uncomfortable and his severe lack of match practice at any level over the last few years makes me feel extremely uneasy. Hopefully Federici will be in line to return, but I've heard nothing this week on his fitness as other things have sort of got in the way! McCarthy has returned to full training this week, but he's been missing for months so I'm not sure if he is ready to return.

Pogrebnyak serves the last game of his three-match ban, Roberts is out for the season and I would imagine Kebe is still out.

I have little clue how Dolan will set up, but I imagine we would switch to a 4-5-1 as 4-4-2 at Old Trafford would be tantamount to suicide.

a little statistic from the BBC says that Reading have dropped 20pts this season from a winning position this season ..i`m not quite sure what is meant by that really ...

How do you mean?

It just means we have taken the lead and failed to hold onto it with alarming regularity.

no ..i meant should Reading be further up the table ...have they just suffered from lapses in concentration during games ..was the manager at fault with his tactics or team selections ...has the ref cost Reading on occasion ..etc .

The answer to most of these questions can be found in my earlier in the post in the other thread, but the long and short of it is we just are not good enough, man for man. We've got all the determination and work ethic in the world, but a lack of investment has seen us rely too heavily on players who are simply not cut out for this level.

We are absolutely dreadful at retaining possession and that for me is where most of our problems begin. We have no-one who can get their foot on the ball and pass, so we end up conceding huge amounts of possession which in turn leads to us letting opponents have a multitude of chances and shots on goal. Tactics have been a problem yes, but that's largely due to the caliber of personnel available. McDermott insisted upon staying committed to the traditional 4-4-2 system earlier in the season and while we were mostly scoring regularly, we were far too open and were conceding by the bucket load. This finally led to a switch to a 4-5-1/4-4-1-1 system which tightened us up occasionally at the back but obviously had an adverse effect on our game in the final third. It's fair to say McDermott has displayed a certain degree of tactical naivety at times this season, but he has been generally hamstrung by the poor quality of players available to him.

So although it might be fair to say a few decisions have gone against us of late, we don't deserve to be higher up the table, no. The one spell of good form we had in January gave hope of a chance of survival, but even then we still weren't playing well at all. We were just able to use our strong fitness and team ethic to rally late on and catch teams napping.

good explanation .....

Dolan confirmed in his presser this morning that Federici is still out, and with McCarthy only just back training, that means Taylor will continue to deputise in goal for only his third league appearance in five years.

Wouldn't expect huge changes from Dolan to be honest, but wouldn't be surprised to see one or two personnel changes and a slight tweak in the system to attempt to counteract United's considerable attacking threats.

I don't know what would happen to Reading. I guess they will still fail to get a win at OT

Line ups

MANCHESTER UNITED:
De Gea; Smalling, Buttner, Ferdinand, Vidic; Anderson, Giggs, Young Welbeck; Rooney, Van Persie -

Subs - Evans, Valencia, Lindegaard, Hernandez, Carrick, Powell, Kagawa

READING:
Taylor, Shorey, Kelly, Pearce, Mariappa, Karacan, Leigertwood, McAnuff, McCleary, Robson-Kanu, Hunt -

Subs - McCarthy, Gunter, Harte, Morrison, Akpan, Blackman, Le Fondre

FT

Man Utd 1-0 Reading
1-0 Rooney 21'

Man Utd go 15 points clear at the top of the table.

Any comments on todays result?

What a match! I think Reading deserve a point as they made it hard for United thus the scoreline. It could have been 1-1 if Reading were awarded a penalty in the early minutes of the restart that might had changed complexion of the match.

spirited performance from Reading although pretty much every other result went against them so it will be an extremely tall order to reach safety now.

certainly no signs of the team breaking apart without Heston at the helm.

no..no...no Man Utd would still have scored the winner some how ...they nearly always do .

Well Reading didn't have a single shot on target in this game and Man Utd keeper De Gea could have taken the afternoon off!

I wonder what has happened to RVP as the Dutch striker has now only scored once in his last 10 matches and is suffering a goal drought?

not quite true ..I think Reading had one shot on goal ..it is a surprise that Robin Van Persie has gone from scoring at will to scoring nil , is it because of Rooney perhaps .