Confirmed XI: Ronaldo, Sancho, Fernandes and Rashford lead the attack against Crystal Palace in Rangnick’s first match

Manchester United will welcome Crystal Palace to Old Trafford this afternoon in the Premier League, which will also be the first time that Ralf Rangnick leads his club into a match. Since the sacking of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer back in November, Michael Carrick led United into two victories; 2-0 over Villarreal and 3-2 over Arsenal, also a 1-1 draw with Chelsea. Carrick ended his time with the club on Thursday evening after leading United to their first home win in the Premier League since the 4-1 victory over Newcastle United back in September. Rangnick will be seeking United to continue their good start to December.

Palace are not in great form, coming off two straight defeats in their last two matches but with their 3-1 victory in this fixture last season, they will be seeking to get a similar result against this United side who have come away from a bad period for the club. At the time of writing, United sit seventh in the Premier League table, three points off the top four and 12 points off the top spot – which is going to be a tough one for United to claw back, but stranger things have happened. United will need to win the majority of the matches played in December, which is a tough feat despite the level of the opposition they will face.

Manchester United:

De Gea;

Dalot, Lindelof, Maguire, Telles;

Fred, McTominay;

Sancho, Fernandes, Rashford;

Ronaldo

Substitutes:

Henderson; Bailly, Jones, Wan-Bissaka; Mata, Matic, Van de Beek; Greenwood, Elanga

Crystal Palace:

Guaita;

Clyne, Tomkins, Guess, Mitchell;

Schlupp, Kouyate, Gallagher;

Ayew, Benteke, Zaha

Substitutes:

Butland; Kelly; Milivojevic, Olise, Eze, Hughes, Riedewald; Mateta, Edouard

United and Palace have met a total of 24 times in the history of the Premier League. United have won 17 times, drawn five times with Palace winning the remaining two matches. United have scored 44 goals, winning four penalties and scoring three of them. Palace have scored 13 goals, winning one penalties and scoring it. United have kept a total of 16 clean sheets with Palace keeping four. United players have been shown a total of 33 yellow cards and one red card in this fixture with Palace players shown a total of 38 yellow cards and two red cards. United need to ensure they can win matches like this, which have hurt them in the past.

There is not a lot of history between United and Palace in regards to players who have played for both clubs. Wilfried Zaha was Sir Alex Ferguson’s final signing as manager of the club in January 2013 and was loaned to Palace for the remainder of the 2012/13 season. He ended up making just four appearances for United failing to score a single goal for the club, ending up back at Palace in the summer of 2014. Aaron Wan-Bissaka was purchased from Palace in the summer of 2019 and Timothy Fosu-Mensah was once loaned to Palace, which was one of many bad loan spells for the player. Jeffrey Schlupp was once on trial at United, but not signed.

Written by John Walker

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I support Manchester United, the greatest English football team to have ever existed. Bruno Fernandes is the latest in a long line of players with great ability to play for the club. I idolised Bryan Robson, David Beckham, Paul Scholes, and Eric Cantona growing up.