Rock-bottom Norwich City travel to Old Trafford in pursuit of needed points while Manchester United preferably need all three points to keep their top four hopes alive.

The Red Devils have not been in the best of forms in the past week. They were beaten 2-0 by Arsenal on New Years Day, drew 0-0 in the third round of the FA Cup at Wolves and got outclassed by Manchester City 1-3 in the EFL Cup semi-final.

Since the New Year the Canaries have had decent results. A 1-1 draw against Crystal Palace could have been a win, but Connor Wickham’s goal nicked away all three points away from Norwich. The Canaries were able to bounce back and won 4-2 against Preston North End in the FA Cup.

Team news

Manchester United defender Harry Maguire could make a swift return from the hip problem that caused him to miss the midweek Carabao Cup tie.

Jesse Lingard won’t feature after coming off at half-time in that defeat by Manchester City because of illness.

Norwich top scorer Teemu Pukki has been ruled out with a hamstring strain.

Fellow forward Josip Drmic is a major doubt with a thigh problem so Norwich could turn to teenager Adam Idah, who scored an FA Cup hat-trick last week.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer inevitably fielded questions about Manchester United’s transfer activity – and the future of captain Ashley Young – at Friday’s press conference to preview the Norwich City game:

 “We go back to speculation and we do go and watch games all the time,”

 said the Norwegian.

Daniel Farke addressed the media ahead of Manchester United v Norwich City and talked about the importance of the game.

“The previous game against Manchester United showed how important it is to control the pace of their counter attacks. They’ve had some amazing wins against top class sides. We need to control the ball and exhaust them, to take their will away and have a quick counter ourselves.

“I can only concentrate on good performances. Hopefully, we can add some wins now, it was good to get that feeling back at Preston. One point tomorrow would be a good result, but we play it to win it.”

Head-to-head

Manchester United have won six of the past seven meetings. United have won eight of their last 10 home league games against Norwich but they did lose 2-1 on the most recent occasion, in 2015. None of the last 15 meetings in all competitions have ended in a draw.