JOSE STAYING STRONG

JOSE MOURINHO will resist the temptation to make wholesale changes tonight – in a game Manchester United cannot afford to lose.

The Reds are under fire after the sterile 1-1 home draw with Wolves – scorers Fred (far right) and Joao Moutinho (circle) – and Mourinho knows he must not suffer another Old Trafford setback.

With a penalty shootout, if the teams are level after 90 minutes, Mourinho suggested he will pick a strong team to win the game in normal time.

“You don’t have the possibility of, after a draw, playing 30 more minutes,” said Mourinho. “You go straight to a penalty shootout, which obviously is a 50/50 situation. So it’s a match of 90 minutes, which we have to try to win, and the choice of the players is based on that. “But I think it’s a good advantage to the teams that are not favourites, because a draw takes the game immediately to a penalty shootout and we know it’s a lottery.” Mourinho faces his former midfielder Frank Lampard and says the 40-year-old boss has a tough job guiding Derby to promotion to the Premier League this season. “I don’t consider them favourites because it is really hard to do that (go up) in the Championship,” he added.