Betfair: Manchester United to beat Crystal Palace at 18/1 3:03PM 2 mins Man Utd enjoying all of the early possession, Palace do almost free Puncheon into the left channel with their first attack. 3:03PM GOAL! 1-0! Juan Mata strikes to give Man Utd the early lead. Man Utd 1 – 0 Crystal Palace (Juan Mata, 3 min) 3:00PM 15.00 Teams out Usual round of hand shakes before they all start trying to con penalties and free kicks out of each other and then we’ll be underway. 2:47PM Kick off approaching Crawling towards our 15.00 start time. Players out there warming up. Bets of luck lads. Romelu Lukaku going through his paces/the motions. 2:34PM Bleak Roy Hodgson is 70 years old. You really have to wonder whether he needs to be doing this to himself. Six defeats from six games, Man Utd away today, Chelsea the other side of the international break, only striker injured… The former England manager has walked into a club that has suffered from muddled thinking, failure to learn from previous mistakes, and perhaps a deal of arrogance as well. Much was made of Alan Pards Pardew’s more attractive, expansive style of play (Newcastle fans must have missed that one) when he was brought in after the more pragmatic approach of Tony Pulis had kept Palace up against the odds. When that started to fail, there was all the usual talk of “back to basics” when Big Sam Allardicci was summoned to rescue the situation. All fine. Except they then went for Frank De Boer and starting giving it the old “attractive, expansive style” chat again. And having done so, they then deemed four matches sufficient time for De Boer to turn a Sam Allardyce team into a Dutch-style, total footballing, passing machine. I mean, when you go back through the Palace managers of the last 30 years there are 24 permanent ones, 22 Englishmen and two Scots (one very brief ill-fated spell for Atillo Lombardo not included), two Neil Warnocks, four Steve Coppells, two Alan Smiths, Dave Bassett, Iain Dowie, Allardyce, Pulis, Ian Holloway… It really is impossible to believe that De Boer wasn’t able to get them playing like Ajax inside three months. This is already looking like a long old season. Selection headache. 2:22PM No rest for Lukaku, well not this week… Much of United’s early season dominance has been based on the form of Romelu Lukaku who has 14 goals in 11 appearances for club and country already since a £75m move from Everton in the summer. Only Leicester have kept the Belgian scoreless so far this season but with Paul Pogba out until November, Marcus Rashford covering elsewhere and a return for Zlatan Ibrahimovic still some way off there’s been no temptation for Mourinho to rest his main hitman. There is, however, a chance for Belgium to leave him out of their forthcoming qualifiers given that they’ve already booked their place in Russia next summer. Not that Mourinho would lean on Roberto Martinez to do that at all, of course. “Look, without Zlatan, we cannot rotate the striker, especially because Marcus Rashford is playing also in other positions. So until the moment we have Zlatan we cannot think about giving rest to our No 9, the same way we give in other positions. We cannot do that. Belgium is Roberto’s responsibility and it’s his decision to play him or not to play him. I cannot, professionally speaking, say, ‘Do this or do that’.” But, you know, do that if you want. Got this. 2:07PM Palace team Crystal Palace have responded to this afternoon’s challenge, and the injury to Christian Benteke, and the failure to land the mighty Carlton Cole on a short-term deal, by collecting up all the wingers the club has fielded over the past five seasons and picking them all at once in the same team. Palace: Hennessey; Ward, Sakho, Delaney, Van Aanholt; Milivojevic, Cabaye; Schlupp, Puncheon, Townsend; Sako. Subs: Speroni, Kelly, Riedewald, McArthur, Mutch, Lee, Ladapo. 2:04PM Martial on the bench Manchester United will line up like this. Palace fans look away now… Man Utd: De Gea; Valencia, Smalling, Jones, Young; Matic, Fellaini; Mata, Mkhitaryan, Rashford; Lukaku Subs: Romero, Bailly, Blind, Darmian, Herrera, Lingard, Martial Anthony Martial, ready for a big afternoon of sitting down. 1:53PM Hello, good afternoon, and welcome… …to our live coverage of Manchester United’s exciting 4-0 victory at home to Crystal Palace. Both these teams have been in ominous form this season. United have five wins and a draw from their six matches, scoring 17 goals and conceding just two. They’ve won 4-0 on three occasions and 4-1 twice in all competitions already and come into this game on the back of five straight wins: 3-0, 4-0, 4-1, 1-0, 4-1. Palace, meanwhile, will soon be troubling Premier League records set by 1993/94 Swindon Town, 2012/13 Queens Park Rangers, and about half a dozen Sunderland teams. They are played six, lost six, scored non, conceded 13 in the league and are back in Manchester just seven days after a 5-0 walloping at City. You can get 18s on them winning here and, frankly, if they do, I’ll give you the money myself. We’ll have team news for you around 14.00. 1:36PM Preview What is it? It’s another Premier League game between Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United and Roy Hodgson’s (this really happened) Crystal Palace. Second vs bottom! When is it? The game takes place on Saturday the 30th September at Old Trafford. What time is kick-off? An unusually traditional 3pm for Man Utd. What TV channel is it on? Nowhere in the UK unfortunately, what with it being a 3pm kick-off, but various broadcasters around the world will be showing it in venues and on screens away from these shores. Romelu Lukaku scored twice in United’s 4-1 win over CSKA Moscow on Wednesday Credit: REUTERS What is the team news, who is injured and suspended? Man Utd’s injury list got a little bit longer in their midweek win over CSKA Moscow as Anthony Martial was taken off with a slight thigh injury. He is a doubt for the visit of the Eagles (not the band) and joins Marouane Fellaini, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Paul Pogba, Marcos Rojo, Michael Carrick and Phil Jones as a likely absentee. Antonio Valencia didn’t travel to Russia with the rest of the squad but should return for this match. This all means that the most likely lineup will be a 4-2-3-1 with Marcus Rashford taking Anthony Martial’s left-forward role after picking up that knock in Moscow. Ander Herrera will probably start alongside Nemanja Matic, while Juan Mata and Henrikh Mkhitaryan join Romelu Lukaku in attack. Mourinho must decide who plays at left-back and can choose from either Daley Blind or Ashley Young, who came off early in the midweek game, which might indicate that he is first choice. Man Utd XI vs Crystal Palace Wilfried Zaha, Christian Benteke and Connor Wickham are all injured for Palace while Ruben Loftus-Cheek is a doubt. Timothy Fosu-Mensah isn’t allowed to play because he’s on loan for United. Hodgson has a dilemma on his hands as Palace might go into this game without a recognised striker – they’ve genuinely been linked with Carlton Cole as a potential short-term option. Imagine you were a youth team striker at Palace and heard they were going to sign Carlton Cole instead of giving you a chance? Livid. Anyway, they don’t have any strikers. Crystal Palace XI vs Man Utd What are they saying? Jose Mourinho speaking after the 4-1 win over CSKA Moscow: Jose Mourinho applauds fans after victory in Russia Credit: EPA “[Romelu Lukaku is] having a great record. We know that he’s a very good player, he can score lots of goals and playing in a team surrounded by quality players, [it is] even easier to do that. But I have to admit that he’s scoring really important goals and almost every game. For me, the important thing is not [how much he cost] but the important thing is two matches, six points and a good position in the Champions League. Four more matches to play but we start really strongly and we are almost there.” “I didn’t see that [PlayStation football] as much, just a little bit of relaxation, a reaction by the home team with the normal pride to try to score, to try to have a different result and we just relaxed a little bit. We had a couple of good chances but I think it’s normal. We have a game on Saturday. Liverpool are luckier than us, they play Tuesday and Sunday, we have to play on Wednesday and on Saturday at 3pm. So I think it’s normal, a little bit of relaxation.” Roy Hodgson: Hodgson is yet to conduct his pre-match interview but told Sky Sports upon news of his appointment that he was looking for passion from his players: “What I always look for in every game is character, I am looking for desire and people who share your passion and enthusiasm,” he said. “You are also looking for people who at least give the impression they are trying to do what the team wants them to do. “At the moment, I think we have a lot of work to do for me to feel fully confident that every player fully understands with his role what I am looking for and what I would like him to do. “I want to see a team that shows the fans that they really care.” What does the table look like? What are the odds? Man Utd to win 1/6 Crystal Palace to win 14/1 Draw 6/1 Best-priced accumulators | New customer offers What’s our prediction? Crystal Palace have been woeful so far, are missing key players and there’s no way Man Utd will take their foot off the gas at Old Trafford. After some tough defending by Hodgson’s team, they’ll concede a silly header from a set piece late in the first half and go on to lose by a few more. Man Utd 3 – 0 Crystal Palace