WEST BROMWICH ALBION v MANCHESTER UNITED
Barclays Premier League
Sunday 19th May 2013, 4pm
The Hawthorns

MATCH NOTES

United boss Sir Alex Ferguson takes charge of his 1,500th and final game before retiring. United midfielder Paul Scholes will also be making his last appearance for the club before he too retires.

Albion's only previous game played on May 19 came in 1993 when they faced Swansea City in the Division Two play-off semi-final second leg at The Hawthorns. Goals from Andy Hunt and Ian Hamilton saw the Baggies run out 2-0 winners to go through to the final at Wembley 3-2 on aggregate.

United's last game on this date came in 2007 when they lost 1-0 after extra time to Chelsea at Wembley in the FA Cup Final.

On-loan striker Romelu Lukaku needs one goal to equal Peter Odemwingie's Albion club record of 15 Premier League goals in a season.

Graham Dorrans will make his 150th Albion appearance if he plays any part of the game.

Albion's last six games: Norwich City (A) 0-4; Manchester City (A) 0-1; Wigan Athletic (H) 2-3; Southampton (A) 3-0; Newcastle United (H) 1-1; Arsenal (H) 1-2

United's last six league games: Swansea City (H) 2-1; Chelsea (H) 0-1; Arsenal (A) 1-1; Aston Villa (H) 3-0; West Ham United (A) 2-2; Stoke City (A) 2-0

TEAM NEWS

Albion

Steven Reid is Baggies' boss Steve Clarke's only doubt ahead of the game against the Premier League Champions after the defender picked up a knock in last week's defeat at Norwich City.

Marc-Antoine Fortune returns to the squad following his three match suspension.

Zoltan Gera and George Thorne remain sidelined with long-term injuries.

Squad from: Foster, Myhill, Jones, Brown, Ridgewell, McAuley, Popov, Reid, Olsson, Dawson, Thomas, Lukaku, Morrison, Dorrans, Rosenberg, Brunt, Yacob, Long, Odemwingie, Fortune, Tamas, Mulumbu.

Manchester United

Sir Alex Ferguson is set to leave Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand on the bench preferring the younger duo of Jonny Evans and Phil Jones in the centre of defence. Reserve keeper Anders Lindegaard will also be handed a rare start.

England striker Wayne Rooney will miss the game after being given permission not to travel with the squad to the West Midlands.

Chris Smalling (foot), Darren Fletcher (chronic bowel condition) and Ashley Young (ankle) are all long-term absentees whilst Rafael serves the second game of his three-match suspension.

Squad from: De Gea, Lindegaard, Jones, Vidic, Ferdinand, Evans, Evra, Buttner, Valencia, Carrick, Scholes, Anderson, Cleverley, Giggs, Kagawa, Van Persie, Welbeck, Hernandez.

QUOTES

Baggies' Head Coach Steve Clarke:

“We’ll do our upmost (sic) to get points from the game as we have done all season. Our home form has been decent and we look to finish on a high. We started the season on a high against Liverpool and we’ll look to end it on a high at home to the champions.

“I know with this group of players I will get a response. They’re a group of players who know how to respond to adversity. They know how to get results in the Premier League, which is why we are where we are in the table.

 “Everyone is making a big thing about the bad run we’ve had recently, which is correct. We’re not happy with it either but I think everyone else has to put a sense of perspective on where we are as a club, what we’re trying to do and where we’re trying to get to. It’s another year of improvement - that’s three years in a row. And I think this group of players deserve a little bit of credit for that.

“At any stage in the season there will come a dip. The thing we should be happy with is our dip came when we’d already secured our objective, which was to be in the Premier League again. There have been some mitigating factors in the second half of the season that haven’t helped us - the loss of key players, the loss of form of key players, and the loss of form to key players probably coming about through fatigue because the squad gets stretched. If you lose your focus one per cent in this league, you struggle. For a club our size and the team we have, if we lose focus by one per cent we’re not the same team.

“But there are a number of other clubs bigger than us who would like to have been in that position - and they haven’t, they have been hanging around the bottom of the table - and there were a lot of teams involved this year. We haven’t been involved in that scrap all season and we’re finishing in the top half of the table again. I think sometimes there needs to be a little bit of a reality check.

“This team, this group of players for West Bromwich Albion have been really good.”

www.wba.co.uk

United boss Sir Alex Ferguson:

“1500 games - it’s incredible.

“West Brom have done fantastically, every team wants to win their last home game and obviously I want to win this one more than last week's even.

“I don't have any injury problems. I'll make a few changes - maybe a few younger players will play.

“Anders (Lindegaard) will be in goal. I don't have Rafael so I need to make a decision about right-back. I want to play Jones and Evans at centre-back - they could be the future. Rio (Ferdinand) and (Nemanja) Vidic will have to have a place on the bench! I'm looking forward to it. It’s going to be great.”

www.manutd.com

MATCH ODDS

Result

Albion Win: 10/3, United Win: 3/4, Draw: 11/4.

First Goalscorer

Albion: Lukaku 7/1, Long 9/1, Odemwingie 10/1, Fortune 11/1, Rosenberg 12/1, Morrison 14/1, Brunt 16/1, Dorrans 18/1, Thomas 18/1.

Manchester United: Welbeck 6/1, van Persie 7/2, Hernandez 9/2, Kagawa 8/1, Nani 9/1, Scholes 10/1, Giggs 11/1, Valencia 14/1, Cleverley 16/1.

REFEREE

Michael Oliver (Northumberland)

Has refereed three Albion games so far this season - the 2-1 defeat at home to Liverpool in the Capital One Cup back in September, the 2-1 win over Chelsea at The Hawthorns in November and the 2-1 defeat at Everton in January.

Oliver has taken charge of two United games this season - the 4-0 win over Wigan Athletic at Old Trafford in September and the 1-1 draw at Swansea City in December.

The Northumberland official has handed out 104 yellow and one red card in the 38 games he has refereed this season.

TICKET INFORMATION

Tickets for the game are completely sold out.

WEATHER FORECAST

Cloudy but dry, 16°C

FIXTURE HISTORY

LAST LEAGUE MEETING AT THE HAWTHORNS

Albion 1-2 Manchester United
Barclays Premier League
Sunday 14th August 2011, 4:00pm

Albion: Foster, Reid (Jara Reyes 85), Tamas, Olsson, Shorey, Brunt, Scharner, Mulumbu, Morrison, Tchoyi, Long (Cox 87). Subs not used: Fulop, Dorrans, Dawson, Thorne, Fortune.

Goalscorer: Long 37

Booked: Reid 38 (foul), Scharner 86 (foul), Cox 90+2 (simulation)

Manchester United: De Gea, Smalling, Ferdinand (Jones 75), Vidic (Evans 52), Fabio Da Silva, Young, Cleverley, Anderson, Nani, Rooney, Welbeck (Berbatov 65). Subs not used: Lindegaard, Giggs, Park, Carrick.

Goalscorers: Rooney 13, Reid 81 (own goal)

Booked: Young 56 (foul), Anderson 78 (dissent)

Attendance: 25,360

Referee: Mike Jones (Cheshire).

David de Gea endured a nightmare debut and Manchester United lost both their centre-halves yet somehow the champions still managed to start their Premier League title defence with a win. Ashley Young's deflected effort 10 minutes from time ensured United did not follow Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea in failing to win their opening match. Yet on the journey back up the M6, Sir Alex Ferguson's mind will be full of problems.

Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand will need to be assessed for the calf and hamstring problems that heralded their respective second-half departures. And Ferguson will need to find some confidence for De Gea, in addition to a crash course in dealing with crosses, the Spaniard's inexplicable error in gifting Shane Long an equaliser to Wayne Rooney's 12th-minute opener, setting the seal on what turned his Premier League debut into a personal disaster. The questions that were asked of De Gea in the wake of last week's Community Shield thriller were all batted back by Ferguson. After spending so much money on the 20-year-old, clearly, the United boss had to build the youngster's confidence. However, there are some occasions when no defence is enough. And this was one. United's defenders, already on edge due to De Gea's failure to impose himself during aerial combat, thought they had kept West Brom at arm's length as Chris Brunt pushed the ball out to Long on the corner of the box. It took a little shimmy inside Chris Smalling to create the space for Long to let fly with a shot for the far corner. De Gea had the angle covered. On TV at half-time, Gary Neville described it as "a routine save". Inexplicably, he dived right over the top of it. As the ball squirmed under his body and hit the net, Ferguson's heart must have sank. It took him six years to find a replacement when Peter Schmeichel quit in 1999. The spectre will hang over him until such time as De Gea, his present deputy Anders Lindegaard, or anyone else, proves worthy of inheriting Edwin van der Sar's legacy.

As nervousness spread through the United defence like wildfire, Brunt crashed a shot over and De Gea desperately clawed a deflected Soren Tchoyi cross from underneath the bar as West Brom tried to make the most of their unexpected opening. It had all looked so unlikely too. Apart from brief flurries from the home side, during which time Tchoyi was a particular handful, United were in complete control. Ferguson's decision to select Tom Cleverley ahead of Michael Carrick in central midfield had been vindicated by the youngster's mature performance. Young's final ball might have been slightly askew but such was the regularity with which he got past Steven Reid that goals appeared inevitable. Nani wasted two glorious chances to double Rooney's 12th-minute opener, which in itself was an object lesson in simplicity. The visitors came cruising out of their own half, Young laid a pass into the path of his England team-mate, who calmly stroked home from 20 yards.

Struggling with a calf injury since the opening minutes, Vidic eventually gave way just after half-time. With Patrice Evra sidelined by a knee problem and Rafael ruled out for 10 weeks after dislocating his shoulder in training, what had appeared such a rosy picture for United had changed completely in a matter of days. Rooney came agonisingly close to putting a rather healthier gloss on things when he flicked Young's cross narrowly wide. A more powerful header from the England striker hit Gabriel Tamas at close range. After Nani's free-kick had bounced straight through the West Brom box, Ferguson introduced record signing Dimitar Berbatov for Danny Welbeck. The Bulgarian gave the home defence a different kind of problem to solve, although the early signs were encouraging for West Brom as neither Young nor Nani were able to locate the target from long-range. To compound United's injury problems, Ferdinand limped off with a hamstring injury. Phil Jones was introduced, leaving them with one of the most inexperienced defences Ferguson could have ever had in a Premier League game. Still the visitors pushed forward. And when Young cut a cross back into the six-yard box, the unfortunate Reid deflected it past Foster. It was typical United. And though West Brom pushed forward gallantly at the end, the visitors held firm, allowing De Gea to breath again.

Sporting Life

CURRENT CONNECTIONS

Ben Foster spent five years at Old Trafford but made just an handful of first team appearances. The Leamington-born keeper had joined United from Stoke City in July 2005.

Albion's reserve goalkeeper Luke Daniels started his career at Old Trafford before moving to The Hawthorns in 2004 following his release by United.

Mike Phelan joined Albion on a free transfer from United in 1994 but his two year spell at The Hawthorns was hugely disappointing. He re-joined United as a first team coach in 2001 and is currently assistant manager to Sir Alex Ferguson.

Alan Fettis, who had a short spell on loan at The Hawthorns in 1995, is United's Academy goalkeeping coach.

PAST CONNECTIONS

Amongst the players to have turned out at various levels for both clubs are: Arthur Albiston, Michael Appleton, Jack Banks, Peter Barnes, Henry Boyd, Garth Crooks, Laurie Cunningham, Arthur Fitton, Johnny Giles, Jonathan Greening, Graeme Hogg, Jim Holton, Tomasz Kuszczak, Paul McShane, Mick Martin, Remi Moses, Michael Nardiello, Jimmy Nicholl, Billy Richards, Kieran Richardson, Bryan Robson, Maurice Setters, Arthur Smith, Jimmy Stanton, Luke Steele, Mickey Thomas and Ronnie Wallwork

ALL-TIME LEAGUE & CUP RECORD VS MANCHESTER UNITED