Manchester United have been struggling to live up to their reputation this season, labouring to beat relegation-threatened sides while barely managing to lay a glove on their top-six rivals. They were poor in the derby defeat to Manchester City before the international break, but with a theoretically-winnable run of fixtures coming up, Jose Mourinho confidently claimed that United would be in the top-four by the new year a claim that you can currently get some very attractive odds on with betting sites that offer great sign-up bonuses.
The first of those was against Crystal Palace, where the Red Devils huffed and puffed and ultimately did little of note, only securing a goalless draw at home. In fact, Palace had the better chances and may even have nicked a win. A lot of this had to do with the tactical set-up of the two sides-
Lineups
Jose Mourinho had a clean bill of health, so Paul Pogba returned to midfield, having missed the derby defeat. Luke Shaw was suspended, so Ashley Young switched flanks to left-back, allowing Matteo Darmian to make a rare appearance, while Romelu Lukaku started after having been dropped and then subsequently injured.
Palace went for a narrow midfield, with Max Meyer continuing his recent run in the team, while Andros Townsend and Wilfried Zaha formed a nominal strike pairing of sorts
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