I KNOW it is not the European club final that Manchester United’s players and supporters wanted to be in.
But now that they face Villarreal in the Europa League decider in Gdansk tonight, the Red Devils may as well go and win it and put some silverware on the sideboard at the end of 2020/21.
It won’t be easy. The Spanish side are a well-organised and tough outfit.
Arsenal found that out in the semi-final, when they failed to score from play over 180 minutes against Villarreal.
United have also lost their skipper and senior defender Harry Maguire for the game, which means they bring a central defensive partnership to the match that is not used to playing alongside each other.
Victor Lindelof and Eric Bailly are used to playing with Maguire, not each other!
I still fancy United to win the Europa League, however. In Bruno Fernandes, Paul Pogba, Edinson Cavani and Marcus Rashford, they surely have too much firepower, class and experience for Villarreal.
As long as those players step up to the occasion and produce the touches of quality we know they are capable of, it ought to be United’s night.
Somehow conceding a silly early goal and giving Villarreal a real foothold in the match is the only way I can see United getting into difficulty in the tie.
After that, it will be up to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to use the summer to find the three or four players that United are short of a Premier League-winning team.
Does he go all in and pursue Harry Kane or Erling Haaland?
It would use an awful lot of his transfer budget, but either of those centre-forwards turning up at Old Trafford for pre-season training in late July would transform United’s fortunes.
Not quite as important, but key to where Solskjaer can take the club, is moving players on.
With contracts so heavily in the players’ favour, post-Bosman, Ole has to move out the five or six players at the club, not all of them starters by any means, who he feels cannot take the club forward.
With Manchester United always paying their players well that will not be as easy as it sounds. But the manager has to get it done. It is a major part of the rebuilding job.