MAN UTD: De Gea; Smalling, Evans, Vidic, Evra; Valencia, Carrick, Cleverley, Young; Kagawa, Welbeck... Subs: Lindegaard, Ferdinand, Giggs, Hernandez, Van Persie, Scholes, Buttner. // WEST BROM: Foster, Jones, McAuley, Tamas, Ridgewell, Thorne, Brunt, Rosenberg, Dorrans, Odemwingie, Long... Subs: Myhill, Lukaku, Morrison, Jara Reyes, Fortune, Dawson, El Ghanassy.

Good as he has obviously been, Robin van Persie's scoring record in 2012 is significantly less prolific than last year. Van Persie has scored 26 goals in 38 Premier League appearances in 2012, compared to 35 in 36 games in 2011. Maybe that's why he's been dropped.

There's more: "The problem for me is that the profile of this club is huge. Alan Pardew has come out and criticised me. He is the worst at haranguing referees. He shoves them and makes a joke of it. How he can criticise me is unbelievable. He forgets the help I gave him, by the way."

Clearly Alex Ferguson's comments about Alan Pardew won't have passed you by, but let's remind ourselves of one of the season's top rants to date: "The press have had a field day. The only person they have not spoken to is Barack Obama because he is busy. It is unfortunate but I am the manager of the most famous club in the world. Not Newcastle, a wee club in the north east."

An interesting stat from Opta as a postscript to the Jonny Evans shemozzle from Boxing Day: Before 2012-13 Man Utd had only scored 7 own goals at Old Trafford in 20 PL campaigns. This season they have 4 already.

We're getting to the sharp end of the early kick-off between Sunderland and Tottenham./ I won't tell you the score, but I will let you know that Gareth Bale has just been booked for diving.

This game almost didn't happen. It has been peeing it down in the North-West for days, and the Old Trafford ground staff had the pitch covered until a few hours before kick-off - the surface came through a 1.15pm pitch inspection by ref Jon Moss.

Good afternoon everyone, and welcome to our coverage of Manchester United v West Brom. Will you look at that Manchester United team selection! Nemanja Vidic and Shinji Kagawa both start, but Van Persie, Hernandez and Ferdinand are all on the bench. Meanwhile George Thorne makes his second Premier League start for West Brom.