Old Trafford. You only need to say the name of the place out loud and it gets the old juices flowing.
Yes, I know they say it’s not what it used to be. The stadium is ageing, has sprung a couple of leaks and there’s even been talk about knocking it down and building a brand new Theatre of Dreams.
But, as a football player, none of that matters. It’s still an iconic stadium which belongs up there at the top of the bucket list of venues across the world. And that’s why I must admit, I’m almost a tinge jealous of the Rangers boys who are about to run out there to represent the club on Thursday. I never got that opportunity during my two stints at the club.
I did manage to tick it off at both Blackburn and Birmingham and – as memorable as those experiences were – I would have loved to walk out there wearing a Rangers shirt instead.
Better still for Philippe Clement and his team, I genuinely can’t think of a better time to do it than right now, at a time when the whole story around Manchester United and manager Ruben Amorim is making headlines all over Europe and beyond.
When Amorim called his team the worst Man United side in history following the weekend defeat at home to Brighton, his words caused absolute shockwaves. Regardless of whether you think the guy was simply being truthful or, instead, if it was an attempt at reverse psychology to get a reaction from inside his own dressing room, it doesn’t really matter.
There will have been players in there who will not have appreciated him being so candid so publicly. And it will be fascinating to see what their response looks like when Rangers come to town. Amorim has a point. But that doesn’t mean his United squad isn’t packed with top class talent. Of course it is – one look at the squad list will tell you that.
But – and this is a big BUT – I do wonder if some of these guys are really struggling to cope with the pressures of playing for such a huge institution. I’ve watched a lot of their games recently and there’s no doubt they raised their level in recent matches away to Liverpool and Arsenal.
But I always believed those huge occasions looked after themselves. At Rangers, it was easy to get up for Old Firm derbies or big European nights. The hard bit, for some, was to have the same mentality and approach going into a midweek at places like Fir Park or Rugby Park. And this United side may be suffering from the same kind of issues.
Will they really get up for a visit from Rangers? On the back of what their boss has just said about them? I certainly hope not. I’ve got my fingers crossed that it will work the opposite way. And I suspect they’ll realise into the bargain that – on the back of the manager’s comments – the whole football world will be watching with eyes fixed on them like never before.
If I’m right – and these guys are genuinely struggling with the demands that come with the jersey – then this could be perfectly set up for Rangers to pile on the misery, in front of a home support which is running out of patience with these players almost as quickly as Amorim.
If Rangers can get in their faces from the start and knock them out of their stride then I don’t imagine that the reaction from more than 70,000 in the stands will be very pretty. Don’t get me wrong, Clement and his players will know what they are coming up against in this tie – a highly dangerous group of players whose pride has been stung. So it’s not about going down there and throwing caution to the wind just because you know they can be got at.
No, Rangers will need to be structured, disciplined and tight in everything they do because they could be walking into a backlash. But I do believe they can do some damage to United in the final third with the likes of Vaclav Cerny, Nedim Bajrami and Hamza Igamane.
I also think Amorim’s preferred style of play leaves United at risk of being overrun in the middle of the pitch, where he relies on just two central midfielders.
With Nico Raskin, Connor Barron and Mohamed Diomande in that area, Rangers have the legs and energy to exploit that potential weakness in United’s system. They just need to be wary at the back because, despite Amorim’s assessment, they still have players with the calibre to hurt you. But, let’s be honest, this is not the Man Utd we were all brought up on.
When I was up against them in the Premier League I was looking around me and seeing the likes of Ryan Giggs, Roy Keane, Paul Scholes, Rio Ferdinand, David Beckham and Ruud van Nistelrooy.
Similarly, they’ll believe Rangers are no longer the force they once were when people like Paul Gascoigne, Brian Laudrup and Ally McCoist were at their peak – or even more latterly in my time when it was the likes of Gio van Bronckhorst, Claudio Reyna, Ronald de Boer, Jorg Albertz and Arthur Numan.
I get it. Times change. And both of these clubs have experienced better days. But that doesn’t take anything away from the size of the opportunity which today’s Rangers players are about to confront. If I was in that away dressing room with them I’d be bursting a gut to get out there and get right up against United. To test the strength of their nerve as well as their resolve.
To see if they have been so sickened by recent events that they don’t have the stomach for another battle. Because if Rangers can get out of that place without defeat it would still have to go down as a landmark result in the club’s history as well as another feather in Clement’s cap at a time when he too is under the managerial microscope.
A draw would take the Belgian to 12 points and into the play-off round, which would be a terrific achievement in itself. Win at Old Trafford, however, and Rangers would leapfrog over United and into the mix for qualification straight into the last 16.
And that really would be the stuff that dreams are made of.