Key events
“How important is a top goalkeeper if you want to win the league,” Dave Jones wonders of Edwin van der Sar, who can’t help but draw attention to the inherent ridiculousness of the question. “What do you think I’m going to say?” he replies. “That you don’t need one?”
More of this please.
I wonder if United’s lack of a left-winger encouraged Moyes to go for Jimmy Garner at right-back. Without an opponent holding width, he’s freer to invert into midfield; if I was Carrick, though I’m not mad about Matheus Cunha through the middle. I’d think about sticking Amad or Mbeumo on the left, to attack Garner on the outside.
I guess Carrick also likes Sesko off the bench, with good reason – two injury-time belters in the last two games have been helpful, but he was also good at Arsenal. Having ti handle that genre of physical specimen after an hour spent chasing about can’t be an especially pleasant activity.
Get on with it.
I wondered if Carrick would pick Benjamin Sesko for this one – now that you ask, I would’ve done. Against compact low blocks, a centre-forward is helpful in terms of a reference point, chaos-causing and knowing where the ball is likely to drop. But Carrick seems to prefer three all-purpose attackers able to pop up anywhere across the front line, to a bloke you know will almost always be between the width of the posts.
As for United, Lisandro Martínez has a calf strain and will miss a week or two; Michael Carrick might’ve been tempted to bring in Ayden Heaven, who’s a good passer and also left-footed, but Leny Yoro’s superb match-saving cameo at West Ham, last time out, earns him the shirt.
David Moyes makes three changes to the team that lost at home to Bournemouth: out goes the suspended Jake O’Brien, along with Vitaliy Mykolenko and Tyrique George, who drop to the bench; Michael Keane returns, along with Tim Iroegbunam and Harrison Armstrong. That means James Garner, formerly of United, and Jarrad Branthwaite will be at full-back.
Teams!
Everton (4-3-3): Pickford; Garner, Tarkowski, Keane, Branthwaite; Gana, Iroegbunam, Dewsbury-Hall; Armstrong, Barry, Ndiaye. Subs: King, Patterson, McNeil, Beto, Mykolenko, George, Dibling, Coleman, Rohl.
Manchester United (4-2-3-1): Lammens; Dalot, Maguire, Yoro, Shaw; Casemiro, Mainoo; Amad, Fernandes, Cunha; Mbeumo. Subs: Bayindir, Heaven, Malacia, Mazraoui, Moorhouse, Fletcher, Ugarte, Sesko, Zirkzee.
Referee: Darren England (Doncaster)
Preamble
Human existence demands an endless search for narrative – consider religion, psychotherapy and the arts – so of course football, its most uniting obsession, does likewise. Consequently, every game Michael Carrick’s Manchester United face is an episode in his quest to earn the permanent manager’s job, the most daunting and meaningful obstacle always the next one.
First, he was asked to beat good teams considered far superior to his own, and he did; then, he was asked to beat ones he was expected to, at home, and did that too; now, he’s being asked to beat difficult ones away, something United failed to do at West Ham.
Really, a proper team needs to be good at all three of these activities. But in this case, it is the third which will ultimately decide how things go: United have long found ways to use individual excellence to overcome the top sides and last summer finally bought well enough to win home games against lesser ones through sheer weight of talent; whether they can achieve positive results in awkward aways remains to be seen.
And Everton are certainly that. Though their home record isn’t great, they’re a decent side with decent players and won’t want to lose on United’s first visit to their new ground, its atmosphere intensified by the evening kick-off. As they seek to turn it into a home, full of shared memories, they’ll be looking to write stories of their own – so far, the best side they’ve beaten at the Sponsorship Stadium is Fulham. or, in other words, a win tonight would be pretty decent inciting incident.
Kick-off: 8pm GMT
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/football/live/2026/feb/23/everton-v-manchester-united-premier-league-live
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