Haven’t we been here before?

HYPED-UP? Me? Listen: I couldn’t be more hyper if I were Gary Neville, swimming in a vat of extra-caffinated cola and coming across a mooning Carlos Tevez shouting “suck my socks, gringo”.

Tonight and Sunday will take some beating this season for a five-day concentration of expectation and adrenaline, that’s for sure. But it’s hard to look past tonight.

As every schoolboy should know by now, we’ve been here before. For 2009/10 read 1969/70. Looking back, I was struck by some hideous parallels. Forty years ago, United had once again come close to winning back-to-back European Cups; we had a legendary, yet pensionable (general) managerial presence becoming the subject of increasing concern; old stars were beginning to rot, with no sign of replacements; and we were facing a menace resurgent in our own backyard.