Our Premier League displays so far this season have been somewhat underwhelming but something quite amazing happened during our Champions League match against Brugge in midweek when Memphis Depay lit up Old Trafford with the kind of Champions League debut we hadn’t seen since… well… probably Wayne Rooney’s all those years ago and whilst Wayne if now huffing and puffing around the pitch looking a million miles away from that precocious teenage talent, all eyes are surely going to be on the new kid from here on in.
It seems a huge burden to put on a young player who’s only just arrived but, hair and elbows (that’s Fellaini, by the way) aside, it’s hard to see where else our goals are going to come from at the moment.
Fortunately, we play a side this afternoon that have just once at Old Trafford in the last hundred years or something (and that was the season where Moyes was in charge and every record was broken so it doesn’t count… or something).
Newcastle come here today having had a typically indifferent start to the season and have picked up just one point from their opening two matches and our old assistant Steve McClaren looks to have his work cut out there.
Defensively, we’re looking a bit more solid so far and Chris Smalling in particular seems to be growing in stature with every passing game.
I’d expect us to beat Newcastle this afternoon and it wouldn’t surprise me greatly if Rooney finally gets himself on the scoresheet. It’s been ten long matches since he did so so it’s surely only a matter of time.
This fixture has often had plenty of goals in it and you have to go back to 2004 since we last played out a goalless game here but I think today might be a 2-0 win for us.