The only benefit I could have seen in playing De Jong, since we didn't need to be defensive, might have been to sit back and lure West Brom out of their half so we could catch them on the counter. But that is not the ideal way to go into a game against a team like that, who we should be beating.
Just saw that Evans is now out for a couple of weeks for the rags, so that's Vidic, Ferdinand, Duncan Edwards II, Smalling, Fabio, Evans. Can just one team stop playing them with fear and go for their throat? They are missing almost every top defender they have, attack the bastards and stop cowering. Shame they aren't coming up against anyone tough for a while yet.