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Away against Leicester - 26th Dec 2020

A tricky one for the 2nd spot but The Red Devils have a game in hand. The results in the last 5 for ManUtd has been the best in the league with no losses and one draw closely followed by Liverpool and Mancity with two draws each. Was a little surprised that Pogba was left in the bench, Fred and McTominay take the defensive midfield. The formation was more like 3-4-2-1 with Shaw and James supporting the midfield. Bruno and Rashford supporting Martial upfront. Ole has just filled the midfield and the weak-link for me is the right side with James more a player upfront on the wings and this may expose Lindelof.

First half

The Red Devils started with a upper hand. Rashford missed a sitter in the 2nd min. Have seen this earlier, when a team misses chances upfront they are made to pay later on and fingers crossed, I was hoping this does not happen. Rashford made up for the miss and converted one around the 23rd min. One up, I haven't seen ManUtd loosing the game from here for sometime now. A sweet strike from Barnes, got the foxes back into the match. 

Dan James was way too low on his confidence, missed a lot of passes and played way too up in the field and left Lindelof exposed a lot of times. But ManUtd were lucky not to get exploited. The game gathered some phase and both the teams had tremendous midfield play with interceptions and recovery runs from both the sides. An exciting second half was on the cards.

Second half

Started off with a midfield game. Leicester had an edge with respect to possession. But it was deliberate from ManUtd for the counter. But Leicester was ready for it, and covered upwell, nullified the phase with some good defensive performance. When the penetration was getting difficult, Ole mades a good move to bring on Cavani and had an impact immediately. Cavani seems to have that knack of running away from his marker and then does a beauty to set Bruno who duly converted it. Pogba was in to make the mid field stronger and was given a free run. Rashford moved to the right to cover up James' position. When things were settling down for ManUtd, Lindelof had to be taken off with a back strain he was carrying for a long time.  But the confusion was on the right side, missed the marker and the subsequent cross was met by Vardy. ManUtd had little time to move for another goal, 2-2 it ended.

Take aways - Red Devils are not capable of scoring and creating good amount of chances. Looks like Fred and McTominay are coming of age. ONE POINT A PIECE MAY NOT BE THE BEST FROM THIS FIXTURE BUT DEFINITELY NOT THE WORST.                                       

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