It’s been a mixed start for Jose Mourinho’s men in the competition. The Red Devils beat Swiss side Young Boys 3-0 on matchday one. However Man United looked less than impressive in a 0-0 draw with Valencia last time out in the Champions League.
Juventus arrive at Old Trafford with a 100% record in the competition. Juve beat Valencia 2-0 at the Mestalla, while they scored a 3-0 victory over Young Boys in matchday two.
Manchester United have one major defensive issue
Ahead of Tuesday’s clash, Man United appear to have only one major selection issue to work out.
Who will line up at right back?
Mourinho appears to have two alternatives. He can recall Antonio Valencia to the side, or Ashley Young can be deployed in that position.
Ahead of the Juve game, Mourinho revealed why Valencia has been missing in recent weeks.
Rather than being injured, Valencia has been dealing with a mouth problem. Mourinho told reporters:
The reason was that he was 10 days without training with a problem.
Not an injury but a problem that he had a very complicated surgery on his mouth. And 10 days without training needed a little bit of time to recover some level after that.
Young has played at right-back in the recent matches against Newcastle United and Chelsea in the Premier League.
Manchester United vs Juventus probable line-ups Both sides will have noticeable absentees.
Alexis Sanchez has already been ruled out for Man United.
That should mean that Anthony Martial, Romelu Lukaku and Marcus Rashford lead the United attack.
As for the Italians, Mario Mandzukic is out for Juventus. Cristiano Ronaldo and Paulo Dybala will lead their front-line.
Former Liverpool midfielder Emre Can is also injured for the game.
Italian daily Gazzetta dello Sport have predicted the line-ups as follows.
Amid the many talking points in Manchester United’s entertaining 2-2 draw at Chelsea on Saturday, Romelu Lukaku quietly extended his run of matches without a goal for the club to seven. That equals the longest goal drought of his Old Trafford career and it is a problem that is particular to his club – he has scored more goals for Belgium this season than United.
It is probably worth mentioning that those five international goals have come against Scotland, Iceland and Switzerland. When Belgium faced a resurgent Netherlands last week, Lukaku was not among the scorers. That is the recurring theme of his career, of course. Even his goals for United this season have come against Burnley, Watford and Brighton.