Odion Ighalo said watching Manchester United's struggles since Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement has made him "angry."

The Nigeria striker is a boyhood United fan and said it has been hard to watch the club's slide since Ferguson left in 2013.

Ighalo sealed a shock move to Old Trafford on deadline day and is now determined to help put things right as part of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's squad.

"There is transition in life in everything you do," Ighalo said.

"So it is difficult sometimes as when the team is losing games, as a fan you get angry. Now I'm in the club I have to give my best to make sure we try to win and get results.

"Some games are going to be difficult because some big teams are spending more money in the Premier League and Europe. It is going to be more difficult, but I think this team, we have young players and working this way, I think we have a better future."

Ighalo marked his first United start in the 5-0 win over Club Brugge with his first goal, a close range tap in after Juan Mata's ball back into the box.

It was greeted with a celebration from Solskjaer on the bench and Ighalo has revealed his new manager was one of his heroes growing up.

"I watched him when I was young," Ighalo said.

"I watched a lot of them -- Andy Cole, Dwight Yorke, Ole. I watched them, Teddy Sherigham, when I was young. Playing for him now is great for me. I'm very happy."

Ighalo may be asked to start again when United travel to Goodison Park to face Everton on Sunday because of doubts over the fitness of Anthony Martial.

The 30-year-old is still getting up to speed at Old Trafford after going months without a game in China and conceded it may take him a while to re-adapt to the pace of the Premier League.

"I'm getting better," he said. "I know I'm not 100% fit. My last game I played was Dec. 6. That's when I played in the Chinese league, in the FA Cup final in China.

"So I'm getting there bit by bit. The league is faster, stronger, you need more strength. I'm getting better every day, but I'm not 100% fit.

"I'm just one of the team. We have to work together as a team. I am here to contribute whatever it takes to move the team forward."

Manchester United have been drawn against Austrian side LASK in the Europa League round of 32.

United beat Club Brugge 6-1 on aggregate in the round of 16 to reach this stage and are looking to win the competition for the first time since 2017.

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LASK, who are the lowest-ranked side remaining the competition, eliminated AZ Alkmaar -- who earned a 0-0 draw against United in the group stage -- to reach the round of 32.

Elsewhere, Inter Milan will face Getafe, who knocked out last season's Champions League semifinalists, Ajax, while Sevilla, the competition's most-successful team, take on Roma.

Rangers' reward for beating Braga was a clash with German side Bayer Leverkusen, who impressively knocked out Porto.

Arsenal's conquerors Olympiakos face another Premier League side in Wolves, while Istanbul Basaksehir take on FC Copenhagen.

Basel's second leg clash against the winner of the rearranged second leg between Eintracht Frankfurt and FC Salzburg will be played behind closed doors due to preventative measures in Switzerland to stop the spread of coronavirus. Eintracht lead 4-1 from the first leg.

The 2020 Europa League final will take place in the Polish city of Gdansk on May 27.

February 29: 2nd Test - New Zealand v India, Christchurch

Our XI: Mayank Agarwal, Tom Latham, Virat Kohli, Kane Williamson, Rishabh Pant, Colin de Grandhomme, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Neil Wagner, Tim Southee, Trent Boult

Captain: Neil Wagner

Wagner will want to make up for missing out on the first Test as he was away on paternity leave. The left-arm seamer has dismissed Virat Kohli three times in six Test innings, while also collecting a wicket every 20 runs in his last five Tests. He will be raring to go after the break.

Vice-captain: Kane Williamson

His 89 was the cornerstone of New Zealand's first innings in the first Test against India, and he will have the same role in the second Test as well. He enjoys facing the Indian pace attack, having scored three fifty-plus scores in his last five innings against them. But Christchurch has not been a great venue for him in the recent past, with just 72 runs in his last four innings here, and he'll be looking to fix that record.

Hot Picks

Mohammed Shami: He will attack, look for wickets, as he always does, but that mode of operation didn't really work too well for him in the first Test. He is a bowler at the peak of his abilities, though, as 31 wickets in seven Tests prior to Wellington in the past 12 months prove, and if he can get the old ball to reverse, he could be more than a handful.

Tom Latham: The New Zealand opener is in need of a solid innings, and will look to reverse a string of low scores in Christchurch. He will be especially dangerous in New Zealand's second innings when the pitch settles into a batting surface.

Mayank Agarwal: The India opener has an initial flaw, of going front and across against the swinging ball, which makes him susceptible to lbws, but as Agarwal's innings progresses, the smoother his stroke-making gets. He has a penchant for scoring big runs, and after two decent innings in the first Test, he has a good chance of kicking on this time.

Value Picks

Colin de Grandhomme: He bats with more responsibility than he used to, and it was on display in the first Test, when he combined with the lower order to lift them to a good first-innings total. With the ball, his ability to generate swing and break partnerships gives him an extra edge.

Rishabh Pant: Having a wicketkeeper in SENA countries always helps in terms of earning points, especially with high bounce and a quick deck offering plenty of nicks. Pant has two overseas centuries in the ten Tests he's played outside India, the most among any Indian wicketkeeper in Test history.

Points to note

• In the last three Tests here, teams winning the toss have bowled first, winning the game on every occasion.

• Seamers have taken 90% of all the wickets to fall in the last five Tests.

England 158 for 7 (Knight 62, Aiman Anwer 3-30) beat Pakistan 116 (Shrubsole 3-25, Glenn 3-15) by 42 runs

England took a stride towards qualification from Group B of the Women's T20 World Cup by thrashing Pakistan in Canberra.

After surprisingly being inserted by Pakistan's skipper Bismah Maroof, England overcame an early stutter thanks primarily to captain Heather Knight, who continued her fine form in this tournament and at Manuka Oval with a fluent, 47-ball 62, with Nat Sciver and Fran Wilson keeping things ticking over.

Pakistan were slipshod in the field, dropping several chances, and struggled to get going in reply, with Anya Shrubsole and Katherine Brunt providing early breakthroughs before young spinners Sarah Glenn and Sophie Ecclestone strangled the chase in the middle overs.

Defeat leaves Pakistan needing to win their last two group games to stand a realistic chance of qualification, while England know that victory against West Indies in their final fixture should be enough for them to get through.

England's opening muddle

Danni Wyatt and Amy Jones are under pressure at the top of the order, having made a combined 25 runs against South Africa and then both registering ducks against Thailand on Wednesday.

Both players were successful in the series between these teams in Malaysia at the end of last year, with Jones finishing as top run-scorer with 179 in three games, but they failed to rekindle that form in Canberra. Jones fell in the game's first over, trapped on the pad as Diana Baig found a hint of seam movement with the new ball, and a review confirmed that the ball would have clipped the bails.

Wyatt, meanwhile, enjoyed an early reprieve, spooning a chance up to Baig at point, who lost the ball in the low sun, but there was no mistake when she offered a similar opportunity to Muneeba Ali in that position at the start of the sixth over. While England's long batting line-up has bailed them out in their last two games, the openers' struggles will be a cause for concern.

Knight's Canberra love affair

Knight's imperious hundred against Thailand on this ground made her the first English player - male or female - to score make a century in all three formats, and continued her incredible streak with the bat on this ground. Coming into this game, she had 304 runs in her last four T20I innings at Manuka Oval, and that run continued against Pakistan.

Coming in at the end of the powerplay, Knight regularly found the boundary, using her feet well and adapting better than any batter on either side to a slow, used surface. She dumped Nida Dar - playing her 100th T20I - over long-on for England's only six of the innings, and while she holed out at the end of the 19th looking to repeat the trick, the damage had been done.

Pakistan were left to rue their poor performance in the outfield: Umaima Sohail had a straightforward chance underneath a high ball from Knight on 32, but it bursts through her hands for a one-bounce four after she misjudged the distance on it, striding in off the rope before backpedalling.

Stunning Sidra

While Pakistan outfielding left plenty to be desire, their wicketkeeper Sidra Nawaz was superb behind the stumps.

At the start of the 12th over, she pulled off perhaps the stumping of the tournament, as Aliya Riaz strayed down the leg side to Sciver. Standing up to the medium-pacer, and mis-sighted as Sciver looked to whip into the leg side, Nawaz took the ball brilliantly down the leg side, held the ball momentarily as Sciver weight-transfer forward took her back leg out of the crease, and whipped off the bails to complete the dismissal.

There was more sharp work in the final over, as her quick hands accounted for Katherine Brunt dancing down the pitch, and despite dropping a tricky chance off Fran Wilson, Nawaz's performance behind the stumps stood out, in particular her ability to prevent England from using their feet against medium pace by standing up to the seamers.

Spinners star

England derailed Pakistan's run chase early on with Shrubsole and Brunt both striking in the powerplay, but it was their spinners who turned a strong position into a dominant one. Operating primarily through the middle overs, Ecclestone and Glenn turned the screw, offering very little width as they targeted the stumps.

Glenn got the key wicket of Javeria Khan with her third ball, responding to an inside-out cover drive by holding her nerve with a similarly straight one, which the batter played all around.

The pair then turned the screw in the middle, keeping things simple with tight stump-to-stump plans, and finished with a combined 5 for 27 across their eight overs. Not bad, for a pair of 20-year-olds.

Shrubsole's landmark

While the game was dead as a contest by the time Shrubsole returned for her final over in the 19th, but there was still plenty to play for in terms of personal milestones.

A back-of-a-length slower ball off her penultimate ball left the seamer a wicket away from the 100-wicket milestone in T20Is, and when she induced a tame chip back down the pitch from Baig, Shrubsole clung onto the chance to become only the third woman to reach the landmark, following West Indies' Anisa Mohammed and Australian Ellyse Perry.

Mark Wood's injury-plagued career has suffered another massive setback, with the news that he will miss England's Test tour of Sri Lanka after the re-occurrence of a left side strain.

Wood was England's stand-out seamer on the recent tour of South Africa, claiming 12 wickets in his two appearances at Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg. He was named Man of the Match for his career-best haul of 9 for 100 in England's 191-run victory in the latter, which came in bursts of raw speed that consistently topped 90mph.

However, Wood came into the tour having not played competitively since sustaining another side strain during England's World Cup final victory over New Zealand at Lord's in July, and he might not even have featured at the Wanderers had it not been for Jofra Archer pulling out on the morning of the fourth Test with what was later diagnosed as a fractured elbow.

According to the ECB, Wood sustained this latest injury at the end of the South Africa tour - he also featured in the three-match T20I series, having rested during the ODIs - and after undergoing several scans in London, a small tear to his left side was confirmed.

He has been replaced on the Sri Lanka tour by the young Lancashire pace bowler, Saqib Mahmood, who will link up with the squad ahead of their departure for Sri Lanka on Monday.

Wood in the meantime will embark on another injury rehabilitation programme, working with England and Durham medical teams respectively, with his next goal being England's home Test campaign against West Indies, which begins at The Oval on June 4.

He has had a terrible run of injury misfortune since making his Test debut in 2015, undergoing three ankle operations, and featuring in just 15 Tests in five years. His two Test appearances in South Africa were his first back-to-back Tests since July 2017.

Though a change to a longer, more rhythmic run-up has helped to take some of the strain off Wood's body, the effort required to touch speeds that few English bowlers have ever matched is still palpable.

However, this latest setback means that there will be more questions asked of England's management of their fast bowlers, with Archer also ruled out of the Sri Lanka tour, along with James Anderson, despite his recent insistence that the broken rib that ended his South Africa tour after two Tests is on the mend.

Joe Root, in particular, has come under criticism for his handling of England's fast bowlers, with Archer bowling 42 overs for a solitary wicket on a flat deck at Mount Maunganui in November.

Archer himself, however, has defended his captain, in an extended interview with ESPNcricinfo, due to be aired next month.

"It's not his fault I'm injured," Archer said. "I've seen that said a lot actually. It's not my fault, it's not anyone's fault. If everyone knew when they were going to get injured, then there wouldn't be physiotherapists, there wouldn't be any injuries really.

"I don't like it when people get blamed wrongfully. It's hard work being captain, being a relied-on batter as well, it all comes with its own pressures. I don't think anyone needs additional pressures which will hamper them, and evidently, hamper the team.

"I always say you look out for who looks out for you, and I guess the team has a big part to play in that as well," he added. "If everyone knows what they have to do, then he doesn't have to repeat that and he can spend that time focussing his energy elsewhere. So it makes the team more efficient

"He is a good leader, and we've got a good bunch of boys who want to be led as well."

Just less than three weeks ago, news leaked that MLB was considering a new expanded playoff format that would blow up the bracket from 10 to 14 teams and add a reality-style selection show to the mix.

I hated it.

Look, I'm not a hot take guy. One of the reasons I am conservative about what I do on social media is that my ability to channel my emotions in a way that prevents them from forcing my fingertips to create regretful keystrokes is limited. I have to consider empirical information, historical context and many other things before I can arrive at something like a level-headed response. You will never see me on one of those talking-head debate shows because I would quite likely come across as a maniac.

Of course, things happen and you have to be ready to respond to them. If you stay close to your subject -- baseball, in this case -- there are rarely complete surprises. You hear whispers, you recognize trends, you encounter enough recurring situations that when news breaks, you pretty much know how to process it if you're prepared.

Not in this case. That playoff proposal came out of the ether, materializing like Q on the bridge of the Enterprise, and it was just about as welcome. Here was a solution in search of a problem. And so I ranted.

We've since had some time to process it. There has been much written about the idea, which at this point falls short of an actual proposal. There has been some interesting analysis done. Players have responded, executives have chimed in, the MLBPA has acknowledged it in an opaque way. And you know what? I still hate it.

Let's get into this by first tracing back a few years ... let's say five ... and try to envision just how this format might play out in a typical season.

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Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has said his last trip to Everton was his "lowest point" as Manchester United manager as he prepares to take his team back to Goodison Park for the first time since a humiliating 4-0 defeat in April.

Solskjaer branded the thrashing "a capitulation" and in the immediate aftermath questioned whether his players cared enough to play for the club.

Everton have been transformed since the appointment of Carlo Ancelotti but Solskjaer has promised a better performance on Sunday.

"That was the lowest I've been," Solskjaer said.

"I think you all know that and remember that. That was a capitulation. We had absolutely nothing about us, even though their goals were more or less counter-attacks from set plays and long throw-ins.

"Everything you didn't want to see you saw in that game. Against Everton at home, they're hard to play against with two up front.

"They put players in the box and we knew what we were up against. I'm 100% sure we'll put a better performance up."

Of the players who featured at Goodison Park in April, David De Gea, Victor Lindelof, Nemanja Matic, Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial, Fred, Andreas Pereira, Paul Pogba and Scott McTominay are still regulars.

Chris Smalling, Ashley Young, Romelu Lukaku and Alexis Sanchez have left while Phil Jones and Diogo Dalot are on the fringes of the squad.

"That was the day, the lowest," Solskjaer said.

"I knew probably before then but one or two had their last chance, more or less, but we had to get to the summer first.

"I can with hand on heart 100% say these boys will never give in and never give up like that team did. These are the boys we want to build the next team around."

United extended their unbeaten run to seven with the 5-0 win over Club Brugge on Thursday night. Odion Ighalo scored his first goal for the club following his deadline day move from Shanghai Shenhua and the Nigerian could be asked to step in again if Anthony Martial cannot shake off a thigh injury he picked up in training on Wednesday.

"Odion has definitely shown what type of striker he is," Solskjaer added.

"He's ready for that game on Sunday. I don't know about Anthony, to be honest. I've not asked. He tried [to play against Brugge] so he wasn't that bad but we'll have to do a scan probably."

Tottenham vs. Wolves have the makings of a big game as both teams chase a European place. How will Jose Mourinho respond after the loss at Chelsea? Here's what we are watching out for in the Premier League this weekend.

JUMP TO: How will Mourinho approach key Wolves clash? West Ham on the rebound? | Liverpool the new road kings? | Man to Watch | Game to watch | Team that needs luck | One thing that will happen | Predictions

THE WEEKEND'S BIG QUESTIONS

How will Jose Mourinho approach the game against Wolves?

Jose Mourinho's constant insistence that, without Harry Kane and Son Heung-Min, there's only one possible way he could set up his Tottenham team is just about plausible, if not massively convincing, against RB Leipzig in the Champions League and away to Chelsea. But what about against Wolves? How does Mourinho gauge this one?

This is a big game, against an excellent team who are one of Tottenham's rivals for a European place, but what would Mourinho be saying about the attacking players he has if he doesn't think they can compete in a home game against a team of similar quality, who played on Thursday when Tottenham will have had eight days to prepare? Surely he can't be as negative in this game as he has been before, can he? If he does, it might be another piece of evidence that he's yesterday's coach.

Was West Ham's performance vs. Liverpool the start of a recovery?

For a while on Monday night, it looked like football would do what football does and make West Ham the first team to beat Liverpool this season. But Liverpool did what Liverpool do and got those two late goals to consign the Hammers to a fifth defeat in seven and emphasise even further what desperate trouble they are in. Still, if David Moyes was sunny of disposition, he could spin it as a positive, reason that quite literally nobody beats Liverpool in the Premier League and their performance at Anfield is something to build upon.

For their sake, it had better be, because their game against Southampton at the weekend is now absolutely colossal, firstly because...well, any game would be after a run as bad as theirs, but after this one their next fixtures are Arsenal (a), Wolves (h), Tottenham (a) and Chelsea (h). Not that the Saints should be regarded as a team they should beat: Ralph Hasenhuttl's men are the fifth-best away team in the Premier League, and the Hammers have the second-worst home record. This could get ugly.

Can Liverpool break the record for most consecutive wins?

After most weekends for the past few months it's been a challenge to come up with new ways to describe Liverpool's complete dominance over the rest of the Premier League. If they win on Saturday though, it will be more straightforward: victory over Watford will be their 19th in a row, breaking the record that they currently jointly hold with Manchester City, setting further in stone this Liverpool side's place in history.

Does it mean much? Jurgen Klopp will probably shrug and say it doesn't, but more tangibly it will be another step towards confirming the title, which at the moment is on pace to be confirmed against Crystal Palace towards the end of March. With Manchester City otherwise engaged with the Carabao Cup final this weekend, a Liverpool win will put them an extraordinary 25 points ahead. It doesn't matter how many times you see that written down, it still doesn't quite seem real.

MAN TO WATCH

Odion Ighalo

It was impossible not to feel delighted for Odion Ighalo as he scored his first goal for Manchester United against Club Brugge on Thursday. But now sentiment must be set aside, because Ighalo's work really starts: we don't know how serious Anthony Martial's thigh injury is, but United would be foolish to risk the Frenchman for the trip to Everton on Sunday if there is any doubt over his fitness.

All of which means all eyes are on Ighalo, who'll now almost certainly have to be their attacking focal point, thrown into the Premier League team probably a little earlier than is ideal. But this is his big chance, to show those that scoffed at United signing him that they were wrong, and to justify the faith they showed in him.

THE GAME YOU'RE NOT PLANNING TO WATCH...BUT SHOULD

Brighton vs. Crystal Palace

Frequently one of the most entertaining fixtures in the calendar, if only because of the strange and long-running rivalry between the two sides. There are various theories about why these two don't like each other, most of them dating back to a couple of games in the 1970s, but it remains odd that teams some 46 miles apart maintain such enmity. It's most certainly there though, and while this is a game between two relatively mediocre teams who are probably competent enough to stay up, but not good enough to do much more than that, it is still certainly worth a look.

THE TEAM THAT NEEDS A BIT OF LUCK

Leicester City

They might still be in the Champions League places, but Leicester's form is abysmal: three wins in the last 11, they've failed to score in the last two, have only kept clean sheets in two of those 11 and it was the draw against this weekend's opponents Norwich back in December that seemed to start the poor run. Much could depend on whether Wilfred Ndidi is fit to return, the midfielder whose absence has been one of the key reasons for their poor form, and about whose fitness Brendan Rodgers was cagey this week. For the moment their cushion in the Champions League places looks comfortable at nine points, but if they can't beat the bottom-of-the-table Canaries, then alarm bells will really start to ring.

ONE THING THAT WILL DEFINITELY HAPPEN

Burnley will beat Newcastle in the grimmest game you'll see

Newcastle have one win in their last nine. Burnley have won four of their last five. The form indicates that there's only one way this encounter will go, but would we recommend watching it? No we would not. Sean Dyche generally bristles at the suggestion that his Burnley side are not great to watch, but aside from the brilliant left foot of Dwight McNeil, not many neutrals would willingly part with cash to see them. Newcastle will be trying to grimly hang on and get something -- anything -- to stave off the threat of the relegation scrap, and aside from the chaos of Allan Saint-Maximin and occasional flashes from Miguel Almiron, aren't great entertainers either. No, we wouldn't suggest clearing space in your diary for this one.

PREDICTIONS

Norwich 1-1 Leicester
Brighton 1-0 Crystal Palace
Bournemouth 0-2 Chelsea
Newcastle 0-1 Burnley
West Ham 0-3 Southampton
Watford 1-3 Liverpool
Tottenham 2-2 Wolves
Everton 3-2 Manchester United

Mushfiqur Rahim has stressed that he would not change his mind about skipping the tour of Pakistan, despite BCB president Nazmul Hassan's tough stance on the matter, where he said that Mushfiqur was "contract-bound" to tour with the rest of the team.

"I made my stance clear about Pakistan, and they [BCB] has also accepted it," Mushfiqur told NTV news channel. "They should have shown me respect for not putting my name in the PSL draft either. I think it is pretty clear. It won't change in the future. I wish well to those who are going to Pakistan."

Bangladesh's tour of Pakistan was split in three, and the last of these is lined up for early April, when the two teams play a one-off ODI [April 3] and the second of two Tests [from April 5], all in Karachi. The two teams first played a three-T20I series in Lahore in January and then the first Test in Rawalpindi earlier this month. Mushfiqur, who scored his third double-hundred in Tests in Bangladesh's innings-and-106-run win over Zimbabwe in Dhaka earlier this week, had opted out of touring earlier, saying that his family was concerned for his safety.

He was the only Bangladeshi cricketer to refuse to travel.

Hassan, who had stated before announcing the tour dates in January that every player had the right to choose whether he wanted to tour Pakistan or not, made a U-turn after Bangladesh's win over Zimbabwe, expressing his dismay at Mushfiqur's decision.

"We are expecting that he would go. Not only him, but every contracted player should go," he had said. "Players have to think about the country, and not just themselves. This is what I personally feel. The country comes before everything else.

"Everyone should keep it in mind. We will remind them that the contracted players must play as they are told, when selected. It never occurred to me that one has to tell them this, too."