Second-placed Manchester United return to league action for
the second of three consecutive home games,
looking to keep up the pressure at the top of
the table on leaders Manchester City, who will
have already faced Tottenham Hotspur in the
day's early kick-off by the time the Reds play Sunderland. The Black Cats are struggling at the
bottom of the table with two points from six
games, their only victory so far this term
coming against League Two club Exeter City in
the Capital One Cup.

FORM GUIDE: United followed up last weekend's entertaining 3-2 win at Southampton with a comfortable 3-0 triumph over Ipswich Town in the Capital One Cup on Wednesday night. Sunderland exited the
competition at the hands of Man City, who were
4-0 up inside 36 minutes at the Stadium of Light
and eventually won 4-1. That was the
Wearsiders' third successive defeat, following a
2-0 reversal at Bournemouth and a 1-0 home loss to Tottenham.

TEAM NEWS: After giving first starts of the season to Antonio Valencia and Andreas
Pereira - the latter scoring on his full debut -
against Ipswich, Louis van Gaal could bring the
likes of Matteo Darmian and Memphis back into
his line-up. Marcos Rojo and Paddy McNair
missed the cup tie through injury but the recovering Phil Jones gained 21 valuable
minutes as a substitute. Sunderland boss Dick
Advocaat also made changes in midweek, so
Costel Pantilimon, Billy Jones, Jordi Gomez and
Jermain Defoe could return. Younes Kaboul is
available after suspension and John O'Shea is poised for another outing against his former
club. Adam Matthews (ankle) is out but USA
international DeAndre Yedlin is likely to start
after an encouraging debut in the defeat to City.

STAR MAN: Defoe is now in his thirties and it seemed his successful time in English football's
top flight was over when he joined Major
League Soccer side Toronto FC in January 2014.
But a year later, the former Tottenham and West
Ham United striker moved back to the Stadium
of Light and he is still banging in the goals, including two so far in the league this season
and a hat-trick against Exeter.

SUB-PLOT: Van Gaal comes up against a fellow Dutchman for the second weekend in a row
and his rivalry with Advocaat goes back a long
way. The Sunderland boss has only lost once to
a van Gaal side in nine meetings between the
pair, and replaced him as manager of the
Netherlands national side in January 2002.

REFEREE: Mike Jones's last United fixture was the 3-1 win over Newcastle United at Old
Trafford on Boxing Day last year. In his five
games so far this term, the Chester official has
shown 23 yellow cards and one red. 1


www.manutd.com/en/Fixtures-And-Results/Match-Reports/2015/Sep/Preview-of-Manchester-United-v-Sunderland-Barclays-Premier-League-on-26-September.aspx

It's my birthday,man.u fans give me .1000 likes on facebook and nairaland https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1607226392872090

Up man u

Looking forward to Rooney's goal, Martial goal, Memphis gra gra, Young's cluelessness, Fellaini's useless head, Mata's unbridled talent, Herrera's industry, David's safe hands and Smalling/Blind authority in the defence. Up man utd we are champions and blue minions always shiver when the Red Devil's army march on!!!!!!

Martial....pls abeg take it easy with sunderland.just score one goal so that you don't push them further towards relegation with terrible negative goal differences.

this game is gonna end a 0-0 draw fulltime