The Sports Lowdown For All Your News and OpinionsTheir Last Matches
Manchester United played their City rivals, Manchester City, at Old Trafford on Sunday. This ended in a 0-0 draw which wasn’t the result either team would have wanted. Manchester should have won the match as they were the better side in the 90 minutes of playing time. They went close a few times, but City’s keeper, Joe Hart, stood strong in front of the goal and denied United many good opportunities. However United were the better side defensively throughout the match and City didn’t look like they would score.
Middlesbrough went down to Wolverhampton Wanderers who were mid-table. Wolves went up courtesy of a Dave Edwards header after 22 minutes. It took Boro till 70 minutes when Downing crossed it to Fabbrini who scored. A Downing pass to Friend looked like they were going 2-0, however they managed to get a Penalty which Leadbitter scored. Deep in injury time Downing made it 3-1 after scoring a superb free kick. This ended a 3 game goal drought for Karanka and his team which had 1 draw and 2 losses and saw Boor go up to 4th.
Current Form
Manchester United have won 3 of their last 5 domestic games which includes a 3-0 win over Ipswich in the last round of this cup. Also in the last 5 their has been 1 loss, which was against Arsenal 3-0 at the Emirates Stadium. The other game in their last 5 was the 0-0 draw against rivals Manchester City.
Middlesbrough have had a dip in form currently as they have only managed to win 2 in their last 5 games. Before Saturday’s game against Wolves, Boro hadn’t scored since their 3-0 win over Leeds. A loss against Reading and Cardiff saw a dip in form and confidence, also their was a 0-0 Fulham. The win against Wolves will have given Boro some confidence going into this game.
Head to Head
The 2 teams have met each other on 123 occasions both at United and Boro. Manchester have won 62 of them matches whilst Boro have won 33. There has been 28 draws in total as well. The last time the 2 teams met was in 2009 at the Riverside where United won 2-0. The last time the teams have met in the League cup was in 2008/09 in the 3rd round where United won 3-1 at Old Trafford.
The Match
Both teams are good and have good, young talent in their teams. Boro will be going into the match as under dogs in this match, however they have the talent to cause another cup upset in the last year. If United under estimate Boro, then Boro have got a good chance of beating United, however United could come out and run riot and beat Boro.
Head to head stats were from Soccerbase.com
