The Champions League gets underway this evening with a couple of decent games to look forward to including Barcelona away to Leverkusen and then tomorrow Arsenal take on AC Milan in Italy.
The other four matches get played next week but there’s one name missing from the fixture list – that of Manchester United.
Yes, after years of uninterrupted Champions League football and the Tuesday/Wednesday night football we’re now relegated to Thursday night on Channel 5 and it feels quite strange… I’m not used to watching football on a Thursday night!
It should be interesting though. Whilst the players have been making all the right noises about how they view it as another competition they want to win, I’m not convinced that it is viewed with anything like the importance that the Premier League is and Fergie’s first team sheet should tell us all we need to know about just how highly he regards it.
There has been some talk of the likes of Paul Pogba getting some much-needed game time in the competition and I hope that this is what will happen – it would be a fantastic opportunity for the lad to get some high end European experience and bridge that gap between Reserves and First Team.
Tom Cleverley could also make his re-appearance this week and, again, it would be a great opportunity for him to get back into “proper” competitive football.
I also hope that Ben Amos is rewarded for his pretty faultless displays whenever called upon by being given the goalkeeping position for as long as we remain in this competition.
The Europa League has been referred to as the Carling Cup of European football and, whilst this might be an unkind description (there are some top clubs in the competition – we face one on Thursday) I have a feeling that we are going to see some Carling Cup-esque squad selections and I am hoping that this feeling is correct.
Bring it on!