The Friends Stadium in Stockholm, Sweden, will host a prestigious friendly clash between Manchester United and Leeds United on Saturday afternoon.
The Red Devils and The Whites are fierce rivals who will meet in the league next season, but this will be their first warm-up game and a chance to give their squads a run-out.
It can be tricky to make a prediction for these games, but there’e some key facts to understand about this match.
As this is both teams’ first pre-season friendly, managers Ruben Amorim and Daniel Farke will want to give more than their first-choice teams game time. As such, you can expect lots of substitutions at half-time nd throughout the second half. This will of course favour the team with the deeper and stronger squad, which at present, is Manchester United.
The Red Devils finished last season 15th in the Premier League and lost in the Europa League Final to Tottenham. Leeds were promoted to the Premier League as Champions of the Championship.
Manchester United have played two friendlies in post-season, losing 1-0 to an ASEAN All-Star team, before beating a Hong Kong XI 3-1 two days later. Prior to that, their final competitive match was a 2-0 home win over Aston Villa.
Leeds last action saw them win their last six games, their last three seeing big home wins over Stoke (6-0) and Bristol City (4-0) before a final day away win at Plymouth (2-1) that saw them win the title.
