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Manchester United face, on paper, their toughest test of the season to date when they travel to St Mary’s to face Mauricio Pellegrino’s Southampton.
Jose Mourinho’s side have made an impressive start to the new campaign, with only alphabetical order separating them from neighbours Manchester City at the top of the Premier League table.
With a number of players in form, Mourinho is somewhat spoiled for choice at the moment.
Here’s who he should and could select for Saturday’s 3.00pm kick-off.
Sergio Romero and Joel Pereira may both have earned minutes in midweek, but David de Gea is all but certain to return between the sticks.
Antonio Valencia, whose stunning striker opened the scoring against Everton on Sunday, should return at right-back. Make-shift left-back Ashley Young should retain his place too, having impressed against Ronald Koeman’s side.
Eric Bailly and Phil Jones remain Mourinho’s clear first-choice partnership in the centre of defence. Chris Smalling and Victor Lindelof did not have much to deal with against Burton, but did nothing to elevate themselves into the starting line-up either.
Nemanja Matic should continue his excellent start to life at his new club by retaining his place in midfield and, if United’s last away game is anything to go by, he is likely to play at the base of a midfield three.
Barring any late injury, Romelu Lukaku will operate up top in the hope of maintaining his rich vein of scoring form.
Daley Blind could threaten Young for the left-back berth but Mourinho’s defence looks fairly settled at the moment. The more significant questions regard who will play in midfield and behind Lukaku.
Marouane Fellaini is enjoying himself more than at any previous point in his United career and has done little to deserve being dropped.
Whether he retains his place or not could depend on whether Mourinho deploys two or three players in the centre of midfield. If it’s the latter, then there will be enough space for both Fellaini and Ander Herrera alongside Matic.
In more advanced roles, Marcus Rashford, Jesse Lingard, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Juan Mata and Anthony Martial are all competing for two or three places. It is hard to pick between the five of them.
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