The greatest club competition in football makes it way back to the Theatre of Dreams as the Europa League sees it's greatest asset Man Utd take on Dutch side FC Twente in the opening match of what is a new era for European football.
After a frustrating draw at Selhurst Park on Saturday night, Erik ten Hag will be looking to bounce back and get back to winning ways against a club he is all too familiar with.
Predicted Lineup
I do believe that the manager will go with a mix of first-team regulars as well as bench options. I think it will be a relatively strong team without the eight changes he made against Barnsley during last week's match.
Unlike last week, I have a feeling ten Hag will stick with Onana rather than give Bayindir another run out. We have no other full-backs other than Dalot and Mazraoui and I doubt that he would be willing to risk a youngster like Collyer or Amass in this game.
Harry Maguire will make a return to the lineup after last week's 7-0 win over Barnsley and he will be partnered by Lisandro Martinez. De Ligt to miss out.
Much like in the Carabao Cup, Casemiro and Ugarte will be the midfield pivot with Bruno Fernandes keeping his place as CAM. I think Erik ten Hag will play the captain in the hopes that he can put in a performance where he can get some goals and/or assists to improve his levels.
Hojlund to make his first start this season after a 6 week layoff due to injury. He needs the minutes and it was good to see him return on Saturday.
Antony to come in on the right with Rashford making a return to the lineup after being 'rotated' on the weekend.
I feel that this isn't as much of a 'gimme' game as Barnsley. Twente are better, the Europa League is a lot more important and that's why I believe ten Hag will go quite strong whether he picks that predicted lineup or not.
He is definitely going to want to start this competition off on the right foot.
United's Approach
The manager will be looking for more of the same from the Palace match as United executed everything really well with the only thing missing being the goals.
He won't want a repeat of that.
I expect MUFC to have more possession than their Dutch counterparts although I don't think we'll dominate as much as we did at Selhurst Park, at least in that first half.
The Old Trafford crowd will also be expecting their side to create a lot of chances and score some goals even more so on a European night.
Should Maguire start, I'm not sure how high the defensive line will be but I don't imagine it will be camped on the edge of our box. We should be pushing up to the halfway line.
We just need to score although if Zirkzee doesn't start, I'm not sure whether the chance creation will be that high or as good because he was instrumental to a lot of the excellent work we did going forward.
United have to also be careful of the counter as when Palace broke, they did have a couple of really good opportunities as our players failed to track back resulting in those near misses and important saves by Onana.
FC Twente
Ngl, I don't know much about them other than the fact that a certain Erik ten Hag made his professional debut as a centre-back for the club some 30 years ago 👀.
Twente sit 4th in the Eredivisie with 11 points from six matches and are 7 behind leaders PSV. They've had three wins, two draws and one loss so far scoring 12 and conceding 5.
They also won their last game 5-0 at Almere on Sunday so they will be coming into this one with confidence.
As we know with most Dutch sides, they tend to keep good possession of the ball and don't give it away cheaply. Much like United, Twente also play a 4-2-3-1 formation.
Prediction
I am relatively, relatively confident of us getting the win. I know that we are in a good vein of performances even if the last result wasn't the best but I still don't have that full trust in this side yet.
I need to see them continue to play like they have done in the past three games for a while before I can truly get behind them.
However, I do believe that we will get a 3-1 win.
Background Image of player: Andre Onana in Man Utd training | Image via Manchester United official X (@ManUtd)