UEFA Europa League action returns as the league phase enters its final stages. Look ahead to one of the matches of the round with our Man Utd vs Rangers prediction and preview.
Man Utd vs Rangers Stats: The Key Insights
Man Utd were victorious in 58.2% of the Opta supercomputer’s pre-match simulations. If Bruno Fernandes plays on Thursday, it’ll be his 50th Europa League appearance. Rangers haven’t won away to an English team in UEFA competition since beating Leeds in the 1992-93 Champions League.Manchester United can briefly put their Premier League struggles to the back of their minds when they take on Rangers in the UEFA Europa League on Thursday – though they don’t have much room for manoeuvre in that competition either.
United find themselves in a difficult moment. Although commendable draws away to Liverpool in the Premier League and at Arsenal in the FA Cup – which was followed by a win on penalties – earlier this month seemed to hint at their potential under Ruben Amorim, performances otherwise haven’t been convincing.
Only a very late Amad Diallo hat-trick bailed United out amid a dreadful display at home to rock-bottom Southampton in the league last Thursday, before they were comfortably beaten 3-1 at Old Trafford by Brighton at the weekend.
That result was followed by Amorim suggesting this was “the worst team, maybe, in the history of Manchester United” – it was a bit of an exaggeration but managed to highlight how incredible their current situation is in the context of their past success in the Premier League era.
A return to Europa League action on Thursday might provide a welcome distraction, potentially even an opportunity for Amorim to shuffle his team somewhat with no new injury absences to add to the existing issues facing Luke Shaw, Mason Mount, Victor Lindelöf and Jonny Evans.
It remains to be seen whether Marcus Rashford, who United are trying to offload this month, will be involved, while Tyrell Malacia and Antony are both supposedly close to agreeing loan moves away.
Captain Bruno Fernandes is unlikely to be rested, however, and if he does play, it’ll be his 50th appearance in the competition. He has 37 goals and assists combined in the Europa League (20 goals, 17 assists), second only to Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (40 – 34 goals, 6 assists) in its entire history.
While United’s situation in the Europa League isn’t quite as hairy as in the Premier League, they have only a one-point cushion in the automatic knockout qualification spots. And it’s also worth considering their form on the whole has arguably worsened since they were last in European action, in a late and unconvincing 2-1 win at Viktoria Plzen on 12 December.
They also had to do things the hard way in Amorim’s first Europa League game in charge, as United came from 2-1 down to beat Norway’s Bodø/Glimt on 28 November.
Rangers head into the game in better form than their hosts. While manager Philippe Clement has come under pressure in recent times, they’ve won each of their past three games in all competitions, and their seven-match unbeaten run has also included a 3-0 defeat of Scottish Premiership leaders Celtic.
Sat eighth in the Europa League table, the final automatic last-16 qualification spot, Rangers are just a point and a place behind United with two games left. A defeat for either side at this point may ultimately be costly, as they would then likely have to contest a play-off for a place in the last 16.
While Rangers do not appear to have any new absences, several players won’t travel. Tom Lawrence is out with a hamstring injury and therefore not expected to face his former club. Jack Butland is another former United player who is likely to miss out. Danilo and Ianis Hagi are ineligible, while Óscar Cortés is unlikely to feature after missing out at the weekend with a “small injury”.
Man Utd vs Rangers Head-to-Head
Man Utd can at least draw some confidence from positive omens.
For starters, they are unbeaten in all four of their prior meetings with Rangers, keeping a clean sheet on each occasion (W3 D1).
Similarly, Rangers have won just one of their eight away games against English sides in all European competition (D2 L5), beating Leeds United 2-1 in the second round of the 1992-93 UEFA Champions League. They did earn a 1-1 draw at home to Tottenham on MD 6 of this season’s Europa League.
As underwhelming as United have been this season, they’ll be favourites here.
Man Utd vs Rangers Prediction
Man Utd’s status as favourites can be supported by the fact they emerged victorious in 58.2% of the Opta supercomputer’s 10,000 pre-match simulations.
Rangers left Old Trafford with all three points in 20.1% of the sims, while the draw occurred 21.7% of the time.
That of course means the projection model suggests there’s a 41.8% likelihood of Rangers at least getting a point at Old Trafford, odds they’ll probably be happy with.
As for their wider expectations in the competition, United reached the last 16 in 91.7% of the season simulations and go all the way, lifting the trophy in Bilbao, 6.7% of the time – that makes them joint-fourth favourites with Roma despite their erratic form.
Rangers, on the other hand, are given a 63.2% chance of getting to the last 16. They win the trophy in 1% of the simulations.
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off on Thursday, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
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Man Utd vs Rangers Prediction Opta Analyst.
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