Chelsea will head to Manchester for the 5th and final meeting of the season on Sunday between the Blues and the newly-crowned Premier League champions. The game will have significantly more meaning for Chelsea than any of the previous 4, while meaning significantly less for United than any of the previous meetings.
After drawing with Arsenal last weekend, United now have no chance of breaking Chelsea's single season points record during the 2012/13 campaign. While Alex Ferguson has assured his buddy Arsene that he'll be playing to win against Chelsea, there are certainly questions about just how motivated his players will be while simply playing out the last 3 meaningless fixtures of a long season.
Chelsea, on the other hand, have everything still to play for. While this game is not a "must win" due to the fact that Chelsea have 3 points to play with, taking the maximum points on Sunday will mean Tottenham and Arsenal still need Chelsea to drop points to 1 of Aston Villa or Everton in order for both to qualify for the Champions League. Any dropped points on Sunday would mean Chelsea (likely) need to win all of their last 3 fixtures in order to return to the Champions League next season.
Chelsea team news and predicted lineup
Health-wise, Chelsea are actually in very good shape. Oriol Romeu remains out for the season, and John Obi Mikel has been dealing with a minor hip injury. It sounds as if Mikel will likely be available for selection, meaning that Rafa Benitez will be able to select a full strength lineup.
With that in mind, here's the 4-2-3-1 lineup that I'd expect to see Rafa Benitez name on Sunday:
Petr Cech, Cesar Azpilicueta, Branislav Ivanovic, Gary Cahill, Ashley Cole, David Luiz, Ramires, Eden Hazard, Juan Mata, Oscar, Demba Ba
Manchester United team news and predicted lineup
Darren Fletcher is out for the remainder of the season, and definitely won't be involved. Paul Scholes, Ashley Young, Danny Welbeck, and Nemanja Vidic are all nursing more minor injuries, but in a meaningless contest, I'd be surprised to see any off them put at risk.
Alex Ferguson's lineups are far more difficult to predict than interim's, but here's my best guess:
David de Gea, Rafael, Rio Ferdinand, Jonny Evans, Patrice Evra, Phil Jones, Michael Carrick, Antonio Valencia, Shinji Kagawa, Nani, Javier Hernandez
Date/time
Sunday, May 5, 2013 at 16:00 BST
Venue
Old Trafford, Manchester, England
Referee
Howard Webb
Weather
The Sunday forecast for Manchester can be found here
Previous meetings this season
Chelsea 1 - Manchester United 0 (April 1, 2013)
Manchester United 2 - Chelsea 2 (March 10, 2013)
Chelsea 5 - Manchester United 4 (October 31, 2012)
Chelsea 2 - Manchester United 3 (October 28, 2012)
Television coverage
Fox Soccer Channel, Fox Soccer Deportes (USA)
Sky Go, Sky Sports 3D, Sky Sports 1/HD (UK)
ESPN HD India, Star Sports India (India)
Sporting 2 (Belgium)
Other locations can be found here
Streamed live on Fox Soccer 2 Go?
No. Why would Fox feel that Americans paying for their service might possibly want the ability to see this game live? After all, the customer is always wrong.