Manchester United enters a new era. Again.

After the departure of superstar Christiano Ronaldo and the 2022 World Cup, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest are returning to the Premier League. And the Red Devils enter a new era, without their super star, once again. It will be interesting to see how the Manchester hosts deal with last week's excitement and whether they can resume their strong form. Nottingham Forest will not give up easily and are looking to turn the hosts' excitement into an opportunity.

Manchester United ranks fifth in the table before the seventeenth matchday and is currently in the position leading to a Europa League ticket. They will clearly try to advance to the Champions League places. Eleven points down on top of the table Arsenal, winning the championship no longer seems really possible. Nottingham Forest, on the other hand, is currently ranked 18thSo one of the relegation places. In any case, promotion to midfield is still possible and there are only three points missing, for example, from 14th place and six points from 9th place.

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Manchester United analysis

For Manchester United, the encounter with Nottingham Forest marks the first game following the drama surrounding the departure of Christiano Ronaldo. While the star striker has been a very small part of the Reds' game plan of late, his public statement is bound to have left some hot air. After United coach Erik ten Hag was also heavily criticized, it remains to be seen whether this also triggered something with the other players. It remains to be seen how the fans will react, since the club's owners have recently come under criticism. We will find out on December 27 whether and how the mood will be in the future.

In the summer, the home team spent a lot of money to strengthen the team with players. The most notable players are all of South American descent and the three most expensive signings alone were worth over €200m to Manchester United. For the Brazilian right winger Antony, 95 million euros were transferred to Ajax Amsterdam and had to listen to some criticism from the fans. The hopeful has scored three goals in six Premier League games.

After a false start to the new season and a catastrophic 4-0 defeat against Brentford, they even found themselves at the bottom of the table at times. After beating Liverpool, who were also struggling, on matchday three, they saved the season and have always been fifth or sixth ever since. At the moment they are still in all the competitions for which they qualified. In the Europa League, the top game is against FC Barcelona, ​​in the FA Cup they meet Everton at the beginning of January and in the EFL Cup they play Burnley.

Manchester United were in good form before the break due to the 2022 World Cup. One will try to connect seamlessly to this form and end the year 2022 well. Of the last five games they could win four and only had to admit defeat once. They could win ten of the last 15 and only had to return to the dressing room three times without a point. Only the away balance is still cause for concern. Four wins from eight away games is not enough for a team with the ambitions of Manchester United.

Considering that they are in fifth place in the Premier League table, the goal difference of plus minus zero is astonishing. They could score 20 goals, but they had to take just as many in return. Compared to the other clubs in the top 6, which all have at least a goal difference of plus ten goals, they definitely have to go one step further to be able to keep up at the top.

As with all top clubs, Manchester United also provided some players for the World Cup. There are a few players, especially from the national teams of Brazil and England. Whether these players will return directly to the game after the quarter-finals of the respective teams on December 27th remains open, but possible. Only the central defender pair consisting of Raphaël Varane (France) and Lisandro Martínez (Argentina) is currently still absent

Nottingham Forest analysis

Having just been promoted back to the Premier League this season , they will do everything in their power to avoid relegation. For the first time in this millennium, you find yourself back in the top English league. For the visitors from Nottingham, every possible point is at stake. At the current table position 18 you would be relegated. But nothing is lost yet, because the lower places in the table are all close together in terms of points.

Nottingham Forest fans like to look back to the 1970s when it comes to when the team was particularly successful. Not only could you win the English League Cup, but you could even win the Premier League for the first and only time in the 77/78 season. The then counterpart to today's Champions League, the European Cup, was won twice in the 78/79 and 79/80 seasons. The following UEFA Supercup could be won 79/80. Such results can only be dreamed of these days, but last season's promotion to the Premier League was an important step.

Both offensively and defensively you still have a lot of potential upwards which you have to achieve in order to stay up in the league. They have scored just 11 goals in 15 games, the second lowest in the Premier League. However, the weak offensive cannot be compensated for by a good defense. Defensively they are also one of the worst teams and only Bournemouth's 32 goals are worse than Nottingham's 30. In any case, against Manchester it takes a significant increase to take surprising points home.

England international Jesse Lingard joined Nottingham Forest on a free transfer from Manchester United in the summer. Lingard was long seen as a great young talent at Manchester City but never reached his envisioned potential. Now, at the age of 29, the chapter was finally ended and he was allowed to move towards Nottingham. In 13 appearances, the attacking midfielder has not been able to collect a scorer point. A stake against the former club would be a nice story and who knows maybe Lingard can give his Nottingham team-mates some special tips about his former club.

After signing the new coach Steve Cooper in the 2021/22 season, it looked like a more than successful commitment. Under him, promotion to the Premier League was achieved. In the 62 games he has coached Nottingham to date, he has averaged 1.79 points per game. His statistics in the following season are all the more sobering. You could only get 0.87 points per game in the Premier League. A number that pushes the quota mentioned at the beginning down quite a bit.

Manchester United - Nottingham Forest: What to expect? 

A direct comparison of the games against each other makes little sense, since the last game in this constellation was more than twenty years ago. In this millennium there has not yet been a meeting. Before that, Manchester United won most matches. Comparing other factors, Manchester United is slightly younger on average. Manchester United are clearly superior with a squad value of €732m compared to Nottingham Forest's €280m squad value. On average, United's players are worth three times as much as those of the opposing team.

Even if the odds for a tip 2 are temptingly high, we see Manchester United as the clear favourites. We recommend tip 1 in combination with another bet, as the odds of 1.35 for a single bet are low. Due to Nottingham's poor offensive performance and ManUnited's mixed performance, we expect, unlike the bookies, that Nottingham Forest will not score and Manchester United will not score more than two goals. A tip Under 2.5 goals you get for a rate of 2.31.

• Manchester United to win at odds of 1.36 
• Under 2.5 at odds of 2.31

* All odds and markets are correct at time of publication and subject to change.