QPR arrive at Old Trafford facing a Manchester United team beaten twice already this week. With Van Persie in situ and in form and a notorious ability for finishing seasons strongly, it’s little to concern Alex Ferguson though.

Overview

Who? Oh, yeh, those guys. I’d forgotten there was a match on.

For Man Utd, two 1-0 defeats in a week at Norwich and Galatasaray requires a board meeting. But, to be fair, they were preceded by 14 wins and a draw from 17 fixtures. I had to laugh when the answers from our opposition fan came back this week talking about a “slow start” – try no wins from 12 league matches mate.

There are issues with this team, but they’re incredibly minor when compared to most of the rest of the teams in the competition. With Manchester City and Chelsea throwing colossal amounts of money at their teams players United would probably like to have bought themselves – Eden Hazard for instance – are going elsewhere. It’s left United still relying on the likes of Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes which has been fine to now but may well not be for much longer.

Likewise in defence, where Rio Ferdinand’s advancing years and declining form are as much of a concern as Nemanja Vidic’s injury problems. United started this season at Everton with Antonio Valencia at full back and Michael Carrick in the middle of the defence – and were beaten far more comfortably than the 1-0 scoreline suggested.

But given that Arsenal have spent money on Koscielny and Vermaelen, and Chelsea likewise on Cahill and Luiz, and the centre of both their defences remain sieve like, it’s hard to argue with Alex Ferguson that the transfer market lacks value. When the right player becomes available – like Robin Van Persie – United are still able to shrug off the Glazer-inflicted debt and make a big move.

One advantage United have always had over rivals is the progression of players like Giggs, Scholes, the Nevilles, Beckham and others from their academy. Here I’m surprised at the lack of recent fruit. The youngsters they do have who are impressing – Phil Jones, Chris Smalling, Rafael – were all acquired from elsewhere. Only Jonny Evans and Tom Cleverly of the current bunch came through the Old Trafford system, and neither looks particularly impressive at the moment.

So what problems they do have are all medium to long term. They have to replace Ferdinand, Vidic, Scholes and Giggs in a transfer market where any quality players go for an amazing premium, and judging by their recent League Cup game at Chelsea they don’t have a great deal coming through the system. Plus there’s the omnipresent issue of who will replace Alex Ferguson if he ever does vacate the seat, and the reduced but still substantial debt of the club.

My word to have such concerns and worries keeping you up all night, how on earth must they cope?

Interview

And once more we’re indebted to Manchester United supporter Patrick Campbell for helping us out at no notice at all with some input from Old Trafford.

What have you made of Man Utd's start to the season? Is it a concern that Man City are still top while it's perceived they're not playing as well as they can?

We're used to slow starts, to be honest. Apart from last season where we came flying out of the gates, we're doing our usual ‘start slowly, have a good Christmas and then charge once the calendar flips over to January’. I thought something Gary Neville said after our defeat at home to Spurs was really interesting, and wasn't picked up on by the media - he mentioned how "these players get bored - I know that, I've been there myself". So the defeats to Everton and Tottenham weren't particularly surprising. Our last match, away at Norwich, was a thoroughly poor performance, and they deserved their victory, no complaints from me.

City aren't going away. We know they'll be there at the end, and with Tevez back in the team and looking leaner than he did last season it's going to be tough to topple them. We'll see.

Have United learnt from their mistakes in Europe last season? Is anything different this year?

That's an interesting question. Last season in the Champions League failure was just complacency - again, picking up on Neville's point, the players just thought it was boring, they'd get through that group easily etc. The manager doesn't tolerate that for long, however, and we've seen a more professional European display this year. We lost last night away to Gala but they had already got the job done and that's all you can really ask for. It will be interesting to see how we fare in the knock-out stages. There are better teams than us lurking, without doubt.

Certainly no shortage of striking options with Van Persie, Rooney, Wellbeck and Hernandez starting to find his form again. Which combination would you pick for the big games?

Easy - Van Persie up top with Rooney tucked in behind. It's amazing how much we miss "Wazza" when he's not there, as shown by the game against Norwich on Saturday. The manager tried Hernandez up top with Van Persie in behind and it was a nightmare, didn't work at all. I love Chicha more than you'll ever know but I think he's destined to be the Ole Solskjaer player - a "super-sub" who can come on and nick a goal when we desperately need one. I don't think his all-round game is good enough for him to be a starter, regrettably. Danny Welbeck is improving all the time, so it will be fascinating to see how the manager shuffles his pack and works his way round this one. There's always the uneasy feeling that Rooney is just going to sod off, but I believe him when he says he wants to stay and break the all-time goal scoring record, because I'm gullible like that.

Is the defence strong enough with Ferdinand ageing and Vidic injury prone? Is this the weak link in the team? If not what or who is?

You're right - Rio has lost a yard and Vidic has been plagued by injuries, but the defence is getting there slowly, I think. Evra is still a good player, he's just had no competition the past few seasons and issues off the pitch. Hopefully the arrival of Buttner will push him. I think Rafael is terrific, and Evans has done magnificently. With Jones and Smalling back from injury, I think we'll be OK.

The weak link is still the midfield. Giggs is finished, I'm afraid. Scholes has already retired once, and surely doesn't have long left either. Carrick is terrific but plays every game, so I worry about him the older he gets. Anderson is inconsistency personified. Cleverley needs to stop believing his own hype. Powell is only a kid. So the central midfield thing has been a head scratcher for a few seasons now. If we could somehow kidnap Yaya Toure and stick him in our midfield we'd win everything.

Recent announcements suggest the Glazer-inflicted debt is coming down a bit - is their still that hatred towards them? Don't see many green and yellow scarves around these days.

I'm bored of writing about the Glazers. The green/yellow thing was a stunt - a decent one, at the time - but still a stunt. I don't think anyone really believed that that would be a long-term solution. The "Glazer-inflicted debt" is the right way to put it - it's great that it's coming down, but it shouldn't have been there in the first place. Anyway, they're not going away any time soon. I think a lot of the outrage has given away to acceptance - they're here, and they're here to stay. It's also worth noting that we could have found ourselves with owners much worse than the Glazers - a sentence I'm writing on the morning that Chelsea announce that they've sacked yet another manager.

Scout Report

Well, if you fancy a positive to begin with, when United get their customary dodgy penalty against us they’re not absolutely guaranteed to score it this season. They’ve had six already this season and missed four – Rooney most recently put his wide, Robin Van Persie is likely to try next although he chipped his effort at Southampton and saw it saved. If it is Rooney Cesar could do worse than go left – Rooney has hit four of his last six in that direction, and missed to the right against Arsenal.

When I saw them in that Arsenal game – a comfortable win against lacklustre opposition – they named the same line up for consecutive league games for the first time this season. They also prepared for the match somewhat more meticulously than Mark Hughes did. Sparky went in against the always useless and now terminally out of form Andre Santos with Shaun Wright-Phillips playing against him. Ferguson put Valencia against him and kept him very wide, with Van Persie running into the right channel behind him despite being left footed, and Rafael overlapping. The result was barbaric, Santos turned in one of the all time worst Premier League performances as Valencia ripped him to shreds.

Ashley Young played down the left but, as he’d done when I saw them against Chelsea last month where he was recalled instead of injured Kagawa, he tended to come very central to join the two strikers in a frightening front three that outnumbered the two centre backs and feasted on the service coming from an in form right wing. When possession was lost, Wayne Rooney was often deeper than Young to add an extra hard working body to the centre of midfield which made a crowded area difficult to work through and often meant they won the ball back high up the field. Rooney’s work rate and deeper role may have cost him goals – just two in the league so far – but it means United are able to field two strikers without getting outnumbered in an era where most teams play five in midfield. It also helps Tom Cleverly, who is in poor form but is not exposed because Carrick and Rooney are working hard alongside them.

The technique of getting Valencia one-on-one with a full back and using Young as an extra striker to prevent centre backs going out and covering was too much for Santos, but too good for Ashley Cole at Stamford Bridge as well. When I saw United at Southampton, with Kagawa playing, they concentrated on getting big numbers on the ball in central attacking areas and trying to pick their hosts apart, in a similar style to Arsenal, which left them vulnerable to being crowded out of games by two deep lying defensive lines. The form of Valencia has rectified this though. Watch out Armand Traore.

The only thing that did create was a chance to get going through the space vacated by Young on the counter attack. Even in a dire Arsenal performance Aaron Ramsey – not a winger by trade – had some joy running at Evra the left back. In fact, as already discussed, the back four has been problematic for United for some time. On the opening night of the season they had Michael Carrick playing centre back and Everton calmly took advantage by pushing Fellaini forward with Jelavic and making the most of their aerial supremacy. Again at Southampton, deep crosses to the far post with Lambert pulling onto Rafael caused problems in the air. As pointed out by Patrick in the interview, a lot of the midfield isn’t getting any younger either and that night at Goodison the energy of Steven Pienaar in particular was too much for Scholes and co. Sadly, QPR have not target men and have no will to work in midfield so these two options are probably not available to them.

Oh, and if QPR are losing at half time then head home: United have never lost a Premier League game at home having lead at half time – 207 matches, 194 wins.

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