Confirmed XI: Shaw back at centre-back, Dalot at right-back, Antony returns with Fernandes, Rashford and Martial in attack against Everton

United need to keep an eye on this poor Everton side

Manchester United welcome Frank Lampard’s Everton to the Theatre of Dreams this evening in the third round of the Emirates FA Cup this season. United have done well recently, winning all four matches played since the FIFA World Cup concluded – winning six matches in a row since the defeat to Aston Villa in the Premier League prior to the World Cup. Erik ten Hag will be pleased to have seen how well his team has done since then.

Everton have not been in good form this season and in the Premier League, sit in 18th place with 15 points after playing 18 matches this season and are one of the likely candidates for relegation this season – but there are eight candidates at this time which will change in the next few months. Lampard could be on a knife edge at this stage of the season with nothing looking set to improve. Everton has been terrible of late and that looks to continue.

United took charge of their top four hopes on New Year’s Eve with a 1-0 victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers, which was strengthened by Tottenham Hotspur’s defeat to Aston Villa on New Year’s Day. Liverpool then fell to a 3-1 defeat to Brentford on Monday with United beating Bournemouth 3-0 on Tuesday which has seen them put some air between them and Liverpool. Spurs have a challenge ahead of them to break back into the top four.

Manchester United

De Gea;

Dalot, Varane, Shaw, Malacia;

Casemiro, Eriksen;

Antony, Fernandes, Rashford;

Martial

Substitutes

Heaton; Lindelof, Maguire, Martinez, Wan-Bissaka; Fred, McTominay; Elanga, Garnacho

Everton

Pickford;

Coleman, Godfrey, Coady, Tarkowski, Mykolenko;

Iwobi, Gueye, Onana;

Maupay, Gray

Substitutes

Begovic, Mina, Holgate, McNeil, Doucoure, Davies, Calvert-Lewin, Gordon, Simms

United and Everton have met 209 times in all competitive competitions in the history of both clubs. United have won 91 times, drawing 47 times with Everton winning 71 times. United were last defeated by Everton at Goodison Park last season in a 1-0 victory for the Toffees in the Premier League with Anthony Gordon scoring the only goal in the match. Earlier this season, United beat Everton 2-1 at Goodison with Antony and Cristiano Ronaldo earning the victory for United.

United and Everton have met 12 times in the FA Cup with the first match being played in 1903. United and Everton have both won six matches each. The last was played in 2016 with United winning 2-1 at the semi-final stage with Marouane Fellaini and Anthony Martial scoring the goals which saw United Rach the final where they beat Crystal Palace – last lifting the trophy which they have held 12 times with only Arsenal (14) ahead of them on that list.

Mark Hughes, Andrei Kanchelskis, John O’Kane, Phil Neville, Jesper Blomqvist, Wayne Rooney, Tim Howard, Louis Saha, Darron Gibson, Marouane Fellaini, Michael Keane, Tom Cleverley, Romelu Lukaku, Morgan Schneiderlin and Donny van de Beek have played for both United and Everton. Rooney will be the stand-out player here because of what he achieved at United – all time top scorer also achieving that for England – which has been matched by Harry Kane now.

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.