Manchester United v Braga: Rooney to lead United to comfortable victory

Rooney, RVP and Welbeck can be devastating when played together

Manchester United welcome Portuguese side, Braga, to Old Trafford on Tuesday night and Paul Robinson agrees with, Lee Dixon, that a comfortable home win is on the cards.

The Red Devils seem to have banished last season's Champions League demons as they are already looking like comfortable qualifiers for the knockout phase having beaten both Galatasaray and CFR Cluj. The performance at home to the Turks wasn't overly impressive but, Sir Alex Ferguson, will have been pleased with the clean sheet as defensive lapses were their undoing in 2011.

Wayne Rooney has come back from his injury looking like a man who knows he has to perform given his new found competition from Robin van Persie, and after his unfortunate own goal on Saturday, he hit straight back with a brace at the right end for a hat trick of sorts.

While the offensive players are performing, the defence still has a few issues; two more goals conceded at Old Trafford against Stoke, to go with the two against Fulham and the three against Spurs. The boss has announced that Rio Ferdinand will be absent for the Braga game, but I'm sure it is just for 'footballing reasons' and nothing to do with his most recent pre-match antics.

Nevertheless, Fergie can count on the ever improving Jonny Evans to marshal the back four and based on all the evidence so far, United are going to play with a bit more caution than they do in the Premier League.

Braga put a disappointing 2-0 home loss to CFR Cluj behind them with a surprise victory at Galatasaray to get their European campaign back on track last time out. Jos Peseiro's side are actually in decent nick at the moment; unbeaten in five with three wins and two draws, however they haven't played anyone of United's calibre in that period.

The last time the Archbishops were in England for a Champions League game they were hammered 6-0 by Arsenal, in a fixture that must surely go down in history as the only time Andrey Arshavin, Marouane Chamakh and Carlos Vela all scored in the same match.

It's going to take a biblical effort for Braga to take anything from this fixture and for those that aren't keen to steam into the 1.392/5 about a home win, then Manchester United/Manchester United looks like value at 2.0621/20 in the HT/FT market.

I am extremely confident about United's supremacy here and to underline it, I also fancy 'Any Unquoted' in the Correct Score market at 5.39/2.

Recommended Bets
Back Manchester United @ 1.392/5
Back Man Utd/Man Utd in the HT/FT market @ 2.0621/20
Back 'Any Unquoted' in the Correct Score market @ 5.39/2