Manchester United-Arsenal: EPL Preview

Saturday's showdown between defending champion Manchester United and a classy Arsenal team at the Emirates will be definitely not be a game for the faint hearted.

After a draw for both sides in the Champions League, we can expect an exciting game filled with energy and lots of passion.

Manchester United will hope to have  Edwin Van der Sar back, but according to reports Wes Brown will be out due to a long term injury. Also, Gary Neville is a doubt to start the game against the Gunners.

Other areas of concern is the central midfield: In the game against Celtic I felt we didn't have enough control in the middle of the park to allow the forwards to receive anything of value.

Much of the play was concentrated on the flanks; if United are going to break down the Arsenal defence, they are going to need to use the entire pitch which mean the center midfielders will have to be tight.

Defensively Manchester will need to be solid at the back and need to make sure they don't make any errors, because Arsenal have enough fire power to work the ball through small areas and build on mistakes.

Evra, Vidic, Ferdinand and possibly Rafeal will be the back line, in the center we can expect Carrick who seems to have recovered well from his injury. He could be linked up with Anderson and Ronaldo on the left and Giggs on the right.

Berbatov and Rooney will definitely start after United's inability to score against Celtic on Wednesday evening.

Arsenal will be hoping for better luck after a number of their top starters were injured over the weekend in a 2-1 defeat by Stoke. Wenger, who has publicly criticised bad tackles, and has said that many clubs are targeting his young players, will not have it easy if his forwards are still injured.

According to a report on Wednesday, Adebayor will be ready for the Red Devils, and will hope to bag few goals for the Londoners.

William Gallas and company will hope to improve at the back after letting six goal pass in the last two league encounters.

The center of Arsenal will hope to provide another orchestrated performance with intelligently brilliant passing, and skillful rhythm that has made Arsenal one of the best teams when building toward a goal.

The questions are: Will United allow Arsenal to play one touch footbal? Will Arsenal allow Manchester to play high speed counter attacking football?

Saturday lunch time will answer these and other questions when the Red Devils face the Gunners in a thrilling encounter at the Emirates.

Players to watch:

Cristiano Ronaldo: The Portuguese international is getting back to full fitness and seems to have gathered his rhythm.

Cesc Fabregas: Always a player with delightful skill and ease on the ball, he will definitely be a player that will provide problems for the United defence.