We have the Steve Bruce Derby to look forward in the evening time on Boxing Day.
The original Slabhead, a Manchester United hero and is now slowly winning over the Geordie fans at his boyhood Newcastle United after a shaky start. The two Uniteds sit eighth and ninth in the table level on points and we can expect this to be a close affair.
Manchester United have really struggled this season against teams that sit back. Marcus Rashford’s, Anthony Martial’s and Daniel James’ pace is not much use when the opposition is camped in their own half, and they really lack ideas or anything inventive to break a team down.
Lingard and Mata, their two most creative players with Pogba out injured all season, have had very little or no impact.
Man United have just the six wins this season from 18 matches and lost the reverse fixture 1-0 to the Magpies.
Newcastle have three wins in their last four and kept three clean sheets in those games, so we can see where this is going. The unders seem like the logical bet here, with under 2.5 goals at 11/10 and under 1.5 goals at 7/2.
Nobody likes cheering on the unders, so let’s get something more exciting – it’s Christmas after all.
Newcastle will be the more confident of the two teams with all the pressure on Solskjaer after last weekend’s abysmal performance and defeat to bottom side Watford. We are going to ride the Geordie momentum and back Miguel Almiron to make it two from two after breaking his duck last week.
The popular Paraguayan has found it difficult to find his feet this season, but the fans and Steve Bruce have stuck by him. His energy and work-rate never went unnoticed and the joy on his little face last week would bring even the largest topless Geordie fan to tears.
He is a nifty 13/2 for First Goalscorer and it’s a big 20/1 for Almiron to Score and Newcastle to win.
Shoot over to PaddyPower.com now for all the latest football odds* All odds correct at time of posting.
