Manchester United travel to face Sunderland on Sunday and will be hoping they can carry on their solid away form and return to the win column against former manager David Moyes’ Black Cats after their recent couple of home draws . United have not lost on their travels in the Premier League in their past 8 games and have actually recorded 6 wins over that stretch with their last win a 3-1 victory over Sunderland’s neighbours Middlesborough.
Man United are on a 20 game unbeaten streak in the League at the moment having won 10 matches but frustratingly have drawn 10 matches too which has been the story of their season so far. If United had managed to turn 4 of those draws into wins they would be sitting in 3rd position in the League on 62 points, 2 points ahead of Liverpool in 4th with 2 games in hand – it really is a case of missed opportunities. Jose Mourinho knows the problem he needs to address for next season as we wrote about recently.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic has also excelled away from Old Trafford recently as he has scored 8 goals in his past 7 Premier League matches on the road.
Sunderland are without a win in their most recent 6 Premier League games at the Stadium of Light and have drawn a blank in their last 4 which has been a problem for them all season. This could also be a problem for them on Sunday as they rely on Jermaine Defoe for goals but the veteran England international has not managed to score in his last 6 Premier League games vs Manchester United. Defoe has scored 8 of Sunderland’s total of 14 goals at home so he is the key for United, if they can keep him quiet you would have to think they have a good chance of keeping the Black Cats off the scoreboard.
Sunderland have been defeated the most by Man United in the Premier League coming on the wrong end of the scoreline on 22 occasions – the same number of losses they have suffered at the hands of Chelsea too. The one positive for Sunderland is that they have not lost in the last 3 home games to United in all competitions registering 2 wins and 1 draw this after going 11 games without a win.
So Sunderland are sitting rock-bottom of the Premier League 10 points away from safety while United are in 6th position 4 points out of 4th spot and automatic Champions League qualification. We think United will have too much for the Black Cats on Sunday and we expect them to get over their recent scoring slump and triumph by a 3-0 scoreline as we think they will manage to continue their dominance over Jermaine Defoe and the young United strike force of Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford will bang in some overdue goals along with the irrespressible Zlatan.