Three key puzzles Van Nistelrooy must solve to win United’s clash against Chelsea

Manchester United take on Chelsea at Old Trafford this afternoon in Ruud van Nistelrooy’s second game in charge as interim manager.

The Red Devils are lying in 13th place in the league but a win could see them climb to the top half of the table and, incredibly, to within just four points of a top four spot.

A win for the Blues could see them climb up to third as their revival under Enzo Maresca continues.

How will Van Nistelrooy approach the game?

How Van Nistelrooy will line up and approach the game will be of great interest to the United faithful. In the Carabao Cup against a much-rotated Leicester in the week, he played with a bold 4-4-2 formation, but will he be so attack-minded in a crucial Premier League game against such in form opposition?

It is certainly what most fans want to see after over a year of “chaos ball” under Erik ten Hag, where the team focussed on transitions rather than possession and freedom of expression.

If as expected the boss sticks with a midfield pivot of Ugarte and Casemiro, there should be plenty of cover for the defence, allowing United’s forward players much more freedom than they enjoyed under Ten Hag.

However, as could be seen against the Foxes in midweek, United remain defensively vulnerable, so it remains to be seen how much encouragement will be given for the full backs to join the attack and how much discipline the wingers are expected to exercise in helping out defensively.

Hojlund or Zirkzee?

Van Nistelrooy chose to start with Josh Zirkzee up front alongside Bruno Fernandes on Wednesday and United scored five. The experiment certainly worked for Fernandes, who scored two of those and looked back to his imperious best, but Zirkzee looked like a fish out of water. He managed two shots – one on target and one off – but his link-up play was poor, managing only 70% pass accuracy, lost 100% of his duels and made no crosses or long balls (stats from sofascore.com).

But five goals – if it aint broke, don’t fix it? Right? Or, if Hojlund replaces him, it will be very interesting to see how this affects the build up play. As a traditional centre forward, he was starved of service under Ten Hag’s system but if Van Nistelrooy can find a fix for that issue, we could finally start to see what the young Dane is capable of.

Getting the best out of Rashford and Amad

Two players who clearly were not enjoying life under Ten Hag were wingers Marcus Rashford and Amad. At the start of the season, the former manager was rotating both with Alejandro Garnacho and Amad seemed to be thriving, winning the player of the month award for August. But then after perhaps one mediocre, but not dreadful game from the Ivorian, Ten Hag seemed to lose faith and stuck religiously with Rashford and Garnacho, condemning Amad to a bench role. At one point just before his dismissal, the Dutchman even seemed to promote Antony ahead of Amad in the pecking order.

Rashford played on the right wing on Wednesday, which is clearly not his favoured side, and looked unimpressed when subbed for Amad in the second half. The Ivorian, by contrast, looked to impress and was very lively in his 30 minutes.

We have heard a lot about Van Nistelrooy’s work with Rashford to get him back to his best so all eyes will be on whether he tweaks the system from Wednesday – perhaps in conjunction with Hojlund’s reinstatement as mentioned above – or whether he gives Amad a chance to show the England man how it’s done.

Kick off at Old Trafford this afternoon is at 4.30pm GMT.

Featured image Michael Regan via Getty Images

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