To be frank, we’re not sure about this Monday Night Football experiment. Nice to have something to watch on Monday evenings, of course, which are otherwise a fairly forgettable chunk of the week. But it does make the game feel a bit of an afterthought, as well as playing havoc with the travel plans of away fans.

Anyway, afterthought or not, Manchester United are in deepest, darkest south London this evening, to take on Crystal Palace. Three points will move United back up into second place, and cut the gap to Manchester City to ... 16 points. Oh.

Perhaps more relevant is the schedule. Next weekend United host Liverpool and then Sevilla: by anybody’s measure, a big week. Hopefully, United can take confidence from last week’s win over Chelsea and find a little bit more attacking coherence, before the must-win games to come. Even more hopefully, nobody else gets injured. With Ander Herrera and Marouane Fellaini both missing from midfield, and Phil Jones, Marcos Rojo, and Daley Blind absent in defence, the squad’s looking a little thin.

As for Palace, they’ve had an odd season. An historically bad start under Ronald de Boer was banished by Roy Hodgson, but recently they’ve slumped back down into trouble. No league win in six has sent them back down into the relegation zone, and they’re in the grip of a fully-blown injury crisis. Among the absentees are former United winger Wilfried Zaha, central defender Mamadou Sakho, and midfield string-puller Yohan Cabaye.

Premier League schedule

We kickoff at 20:00 in London, which translates to a very traditional 15:00 on the east coast of the USA, and 12:00 sharp over on the west. Drag yourselves out of that Oscars afterparty. There’s football to be watched.

Premier League TV channel

United are on Sky Sports Premier League and Sky Sports Main Event. Don’t know if there’s any difference between the two. In the USA, you’ll need to point your face at either NBCSN or Telemundo Deportes. Everybody else, have a look at livesoccertv.com.

Premier League streaming

Sky Go in the UK, NBC Sports Live in the USA.

Starting lineup

Prediction: David de Gea; Luke Shaw, Eric Bailly, Chris Smalling, Antonio Valencia; Nemanja Matic, Paul Pogba, Scott McTominay; Anthony Martial, Romelu Lukaku, Alexis Sanchez.

Update: No Bailly, which isn’t a huge surprise; no Martial, not even on the bench, which is. We’re guessing a slight injury rather than any drama, but who knows. Certainly not us. Eight out of 11.

This is our live thread for the game, so please join us for the game in the comments below.