Here's what my first choice line-up would assuming everyone is fit:
De Gea is obviously first choice. Rojo is there for physical presence plus it's always handy to have a left footer on the left-side at centre-back. His partner is a bit trickier since its generally good to have a stopper/ ball-player combo a la Vidic and Ferdinand, so you have presence and the ability to begin swift and accurate transitions. We really only have two ball-playing centre backs in Evans, who is consistently injured and recently useless, and Blackett, whose composed on the ball with a surprisingly good passing range but is very inexperienced. I'd go for Evans based on his experience plus when he gets a good run of games I'd expect him to come good - Evans was largely the only constant in the Utd back four which broke the Premier League record for the number of consecutive minutes without conceding. I would though blood Blackett in a good number of games.
But what do we do with Jones and Smalling? I'd have Jones competing with Rojo. With a back-four I can't see any role for Smalling barring ridiculous amounts of injuries. Jones and Rojo are better as beastly CBs and Smalling's as good on the ball as Neville Southhall.
Shaw would act primarily as a more defensive left-back which plays to his strengths; if necessary Rojo can play there as could Blackett. Rafael on the other hand will own the right side of the field providing the width and attacking options. Unfortunately the only replacement we have be him in this role is Antonio "Corner" Valencia.
Carrick would play his preferred screening role just in front of the back four linking the play in possession and closing the space without it. Blind is a possible alternative here although I'm not sure on his passing ability, both short and long. That said at the moment I'd throw Blind in and Fletcher out- he is so immobile he has less movement than like Han Solo entombed in carbonite.
Di Maria would play as a left-sided central midfielder, the same role he excelled in his final season at Madrid. Starting centrally but with licence to drift left, he's terrorise the right-back with his silky dribbling and put in pin-point crosses. Since Di Maria would likely drift leftwards in possession this means Shaw can stay relatively defensive without sacrificing width. With Rafael bombing up and down the right, Herrera can stay central, passing, moving and always providing options- something we have distinctly lacked in his absence. I've seen little of him but we created far more with him on the pitch primarily because the opposition players have to track his runs as opposed to just watching Fellaini and Fletcher.
Mata will play in his best position, behind the strikers: it allows him full freedom to unlock the defence with penetrative through balls and chip in with some goals. Some may think Rooney is a better bet here but I'll deal with the Rooney issue below. At second-striker I actually think Januzaj is the best option. With no wingers at least one of the forwards needs to be comfortable out wide. Further he adds more pace and dribbling ability than Van Persie, Rooney or Wilson. Thus he can get in behind the defence thus stretching the play vertically. You may think that Januzaj is a winger but his temperament is always to cut inside onto his left foot- essentially it's similar to Robben's role for Holland. For the pure striker role Falcao is the obvious option. He's a pure number 9 and will dovetail brilliantly with Januzaj. He has a marginally better goal to game ratio in the past three seasons but its his predator instincts that make him the best option; Van Persie began as a quasi-winger/number 10 and likes to drop deep. In a 433 as a sole striker that extra all-round ability is incredibly effective, its just not as necessary in a front two.
Such a line-up would provide a solid defence, midfield control, sufficient width to stretch the play horizontally and penetration up front to stretch it vertically. Add to this the guile from the 10 and goals from the 9, this team should easily be able to hit top 4, probably at Liverpool's expense.
Now to the Rooney issue. Despite all the pundits claiming he is a versatile player, he actually requires the team to be built around him to achieve peak performance- he's more Riquelme than John O'Shea. As a proper striker his hampered by his lack of aerial ability and hold up play but more importantly his natural tendency to drop deep than risk a run to the far post which can lead to playing with no striker at all especially when his service is limited- he'll become angry and run deep to make things happen; RVP's possitional sensibility is similar which is primarily why they'll never have a good partnership. As a playmaker his first touch and passing is way too inconsistent plus the fact that most of his passes are raking cross-field balls to the Valencia rather than intricate through balls. By far his best position is that of a creative, second-striker- a similar role to what Dwight Yorke played- in a 442- this formation prevents the need to drift wide, thus keeping him in his best position. Unfortunately however finding two quality box-to-box CMs ( as well as wingers) these days makes this somewhat challenging. Our best bet would be:
The only other way to fit Rooney in is a rather defensive looking 3-1-4-2 which isn't really an option except against the biggest sides- having Di Maria as the left CM should limit Rooney having to drift wide although this puts great pressure on Rafael to play very high up the pitch to prevent Falcao from moving into the wide-right area where he's obviously less effective.
If you play Rooney you have to give him the best platform and on a consistent basis, otherwise he's awful as we've seen over the past few seasons. Thinking about it, selling Rooney would have been much better business than selling Welbeck. NB. I'm not a Welbeck fan- he's a more skilled but much less goal rich version of Andy Cole. That said Welbeck is younger, much more flexible than Rooney and would have provided something a little different upfront allowing him to form better partnerships with Falcao and RVP. Welbeck's much younger and on lower wages. We could have flogged Rooney for £50m, stopped paying £300,000 and removed a bad influence from the dressing room. Rooney does provide a lot of advertising and commercial revenue but I think the fee and loss of wage bill would likely more than compensated.
In summary, for this season at least, diamonds are LVG's best friend.
