Didsbury Dave said:
This is the first derby in about 3 years where I don't fancy us.
Not because they are a better team but because of the system we have been playing, and also because of clichy's absence.
If we set up the same as we have done with yaya and fernandinho sitting deep and taking turns to bomb on, I think they'll punish us by telling Rooney to drift into that space on the right of their midfield, and then hit him with the ball when they break up our attacks so he can run at the gap we leave.
Assuming silva plays we can hurt them of course, but I've got a bad gut feel about this one if we don't change our midfield significantly. We leave acres of space for a team to break into and they do that very well.
Sorry to bring bad vibes to the party ;-)
My first thought was to set up similarly to the Plzen game, and simply swap Merlin for Nasri. But after further thought we shouldn't get carried away with an average Plzen side. The rags offer a much greater threat. We can't afford to leave acres of space in midfield, so I now think there is an argument for just Kun up top, and an extra midfielder in place of the second striker.
So in answer to the question I will have extra nerves if we set up the same way as we have in recent games. Lets not get too carried away by the Plzen result.
