The Danish side have already tasted success against English opposition in the Europa League this term, but our tipster is backing the visitors to get amongst the goals in this one
Manchester United travel to face FC Midtjylland in the first leg of their Europa League last-32 clash on Thursday night.
United crashed out of the Champions League at the group stages and, with their hopes of securing a top four finish in the Premier League hanging by a thread, the Europa League may well take on an additional significance, for the winners of the competition will gain entry to next season's Champions League.
Indeed, manager Louis van Gaal and captain Wayne Rooney have already conceded that this route may represent United's best chance of qualifying for next season's Champions League. The United captain will miss this game though, after sustaining a knee injury which looks set to keep the 30-year-old out of action for up to eight weeks.
The visitors are chalked up as 4/6 (1.67) favourites with William Hill to seize the initiative in the tie by winning the first leg, while the odds compilers go 13/5 (3.60) that Van Gaal's charges are forced to settle for a draw in Denmark.
Midtjylland sent Southampton spinning out of the Europa League back in August and the Danes would dearly love to double their delight by taking the scalp of another English Premier League side.
The enormity of the tasks facing the hosts, though, is reflected in William Hill's 9/2 (5.50) quote for a home win.
Given the significance of this tie for the visitors, Van Gaal may well have been expected to name a much more experienced squad, while the absence of Rooney from the ranks is a significant blow to United's hopes of attaining a positive result.
However, there are undoubtedly concerns about Midtjylland's form and fitness ahead of their meeting with the men from Old Trafford.
Jess Thorup's charges have not played a competitive fixture in more than two months, while the Danish outfit have won just one of their last 10 matches in all competitions.
Manchester United's form has been patchy at best, but they have found the net in nine of their last 10 matches away from home in all competitions and they can be backed to make their mark against the out-of-sorts Danes.
Midtjylland have failed to keep a clean sheet in any of their last 11 competitive matches and, subsequently, the 17/20 (1.85) quote for the visitors to score two or more goals looks to be worthy of support ahead of Thursday's tussle.
Moneyball FC: How Midtjylland harnessed the power of stats to set up Euro showdown with Man United
The Danish side are owned by Brentford head honcho Matthew Benham, whose numbers-led approach is paying dividends
Manchester United’s historic production line of talent has been admired across Europe for years.
But tonight they face FC Midtjylland in the Europa League, a club that rolled the dice with their data-driven approach to developing players and has already seen the gamble pay a title-winning dividend.
Matthew Benham, owner of Championship Brentford , bought Midtjylland last year and transformed the club to win the Danish Superliga title – the first major trophy in their history.
Benham’s approach is based on the ‘Moneyball’ statistical method introduced by Major League Baseball side Oakland Athletics in the 1990s and favoured byLiverpool owner John W Henry.
Key number indicators, rather than traditional scouting systems, are used to identify the right players. A book about the so-called ‘sabermetric experiment’ also became an Oscar-nominated film, starring Brad Pitt.
Benham, boss of SmartOdds, has rolled out the project at Brentford, too, and the Bees defied the odds to reach the play-offs last season in their first campaign after winning promotion from League One.
Rasmus Ankersen, who works alongside Benham at both clubs, said: “I met Matthew a few years ago. At the time, Brentford were third in League One and there were a couple of games to go. I said to him, ‘What are the chances of getting promoted?’.
“When you ask that question you expect an emotional ‘yes’ or ‘no’ from a football owner. But he just said rationally, ‘At the moment, there’s a 42.3 per cent chance we will get promoted’. I knew then he was a guy who was thinking very differently about football than I have ever experienced before.”
Mark Warburton was replaced in the Griffin Park hot seat by Marinus Dijkhuizen this summer as Ankersen and co-sporting director Phil Giles were placed in charge of transfers.
However, the move backfired and the Dutchman (below) was given his marching orders after just eight league games.
The Bees have invested in their academy and Midtjylland already boast a host of homegrown players in their first-team squad, and Ankersen added: “There are inefficiencies in the transfer market. Lots of clubs pay too much money for players that are low quality.
“We think we’ve got some tools that will make us evaluate teams and players much more accurately with data rather than the human eye is able to.
“The model we are using is something that could be applied in any country – it’s just a different way of thinking about football and trying to do things unconventionally.”
The Bees made a staggering profit on Andre Gray (below), who was signed for just £500,000 in 2014 after being identified using the statistical approach before being sold on to Burnley for 12 times that amount a year later.
Who are FC Midtjylland?
Midtjylland were formed only in 1999 – the same year Manchester United won the Treble.
After narrowly losing out to APOEL in Champions League qualifying, Midtjylland caused an upset to dump Southampton out of the Europa League thanks to a strike from Morten Rasmussen.
And Jess Thorup’s men reached the last 32 after finishing runners-up to Napoli in a group including Club Brugge and Legia Warsaw, with Denmark winger Pione Sisto catching the eye.
Midtjylland are third in the Danish Superliga, four points adrift of leaders FC Copenhagen, following a run of three defeats in their last five games before the winter break.
They have not had a competitive game since the start of December, but have played a series of friendlies to keep them ticking over.
One statistic United need to be aware of tonight is that only Atletico Madrid have scored more goals from set-pieces than Midtjylland this season.
United’s vulnerability at set-pieces was exposed again at the weekend, with the goals they conceded in a 2-1 defeat at Sunderland coming from a free-kick and a corner.
Thorup said: “Of course we’ve talked about it and analysed that. We know that these kind of games can be decided by set-pieces so of course we will work on that.”
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