Injury Woe To Grow For Manchester United

Manchester United have a fantastic run of fixtures until the end of January, as we have mentioned before. So it would be no surprise to learn that 9% of teams have persisted with John O'Shea in their teams defence, despite him not playing in the last 3 weeks. However word from Old Trafford today is that both O'Shea and Jonny Evans will be out until the New Year. Wes Brown is recovering from a hamstring problem and Vidic has the flu, although Sir Alex has said he hopes both will be ready for Saturday. Picking either of these players at this stage is something of a gamble however; it might be wise to wait until closer to kick-off to make any decisions in this regard.

Patrice Evra is the only fit and recognised defender in the team; he is in fine form so far this season and would make an excellent choice for any defensive line if you were shopping for a United defender. He has played all but 8 minutes of the season so far and is the 6th top defender. And despite the weakened Manchester Untied backline, it would still be a surprise to see them concede many goals during their golden run of fixtures, so cleansheets may be imminent.

The problems don't end here for Man Utd either, with both Rooney and Berbatov looking doubtful for the trip to Villa this weekend - Rooney due to a Hamstring injury and Berbatov with knee problems. This will be bad news for the one third of all managers that have Rooney. Its early stages yet but there is probably enough news to suggest that captaining Rooney this weekend may be a huge gamble.