Manchester United vs Newcastle United preview

Defending champions Manchester United host Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle United in their first Premiership game on Sunday. Arsenal have already won their opening game, and United will want to take three points from their game too.

Cristiano Ronaldo, who, after the summer transfer saga, has decided that his future lies at OT, at least for the time being, is injured, and joining him on the sidelines will be Louis Saha, Park Ji Sung, Owen Hargreaves and Ben Foster. Nani is suspended, while Anderson is in Beijing. Wayne Rooney should make a return despite having contracted a virus on his African trip. That means we will see most likely see Carrick and Scholes in the centre, with Fletcher and Giggs on the wings, and Tevez partnering Rooney upfront. Gary Neville is likely to start ahead of Brown, with Vidic, Ferdinand and Evra/Silvestre completing the defence. United come into the game after winning the Community Shield and Sir Alex will hope that this season turns out to be as good as the last one for them.

Newcastle staged a late revival under Kevin Keegan last season and managed to escape the drop. At this moment Keegan has a dearth of strikers. Captain Michael Owen has returned to training, but is unlikely to feature. Mark Viduka is out, and there are doubts over the fitness of Amoebi and Martins. Jonas Gutierrez will get a start after getting international clearance, and the same goes for new defender Fabricio Coloccini. Newcastle beat Valencia 2-1 last week with goals coming from Damien Duff and Danny Guthrie. Joey Barton is a certain non starter as well.

The last time Newcastle made a trip to OT, they were whacked 6-0 by United. We won’t see a repeat of that, but United should win this 2-0, with Tevez and Giggs scoring.