Our Champions League campaign resumes tonight with a visit from the team that currently sit atop Group C thanks to their late 2-1 win over Otelul on matchday one – FC Basel.

Basel are managed by a chap called Thorsten Fink who some of you might remember from a certain evening at the Nou Camp Stadium in 1999 where he failed to clear the ball and only gave it to Ryan Giggs who wellied it goalwards where Sheringham poked it into the bottom corner and the rest, as they say, is history.

Of course, some history never goes away and no doubt the TV commentators will make several mentions of that night in Barcelona all those years ago when the two managers shake hands before the kick-off. Some might even use the word “revenge” but that would be a bit silly. It might hold some weight if Fink was coming here as the manager of Bayern Munich but Basel aren’t quite in that league at this moment in time.

My own thoughts are that Basel will be coming here on a damage limitation mission. Their best hope of progressing to the knockout stages will be by beating Benfica to second place, I feel. Their campaign started perfectly with a win but, with all due respect to the teams concerned, that opening fixture (at home against Otelul) is likely to be the easiest game they’ll have in this group.

Given Manchester United’s experience in this competition and given our superb home record in the competition (we have lost just one ofthe last thirty-two home matches in this competition and that was when Besiktas beat us 1-0 in 2009 in what was a bit of a dead rubber of a match in which Fergie tinkered massively with the team) I can only see a United win this evening and the main question is by how many.

Basel may well be buoyed by the fact that we have something of an injury problem at the moment and Fergie is adamant that neither Rooney nor Hernandez will play a part this evening… in the past I would take this to mean that both will definitely start but Fergie has become the master of the double bluff of late so he could well be telling it like it is.

What this will mean in terms of our attacking line-up is now hard to guess but I’d go for Welbeck and possibly Berbatov as Owen has had a couple of games in quick succession this last week and his legs must be on the verge of packing up again.

I’d expect De Gea to resume in goal with Smalling making a re-appearance after a couple of games out if he has recovered from the groin strain otherwise I see no reason why Valencia shouldn’t carry on in the right-back position. I’d expect to see Ferdinand, Jones and Evra taking the other three defensive positions.

The midfield, as ever, is a little more difficult to predict. Nani has to be a certain starter but the rest is anyone’s guess. I didn’t think Ashley Young had his best game against Stoke but could be given the chance to make amends this evening. I suspect Carrick might be in line for a recall and it might even be that he is re-united with Fletcher in the centre of midfield.

Everyone is expecting this to be an easy win for United and they are even expected to win by a good two or even three goals. This, of course, is not out of the question and I have already made the mistake of under-estimating Manchester United several times this season but I’m a little concerned that if the team is anything like what I have suggested, we might struggle to open up what is undoubtedly going to be a packed defence from Basel.

However, I do think that we will be looking to catch Basel cold as we go straight at them from the opening whistle and if we can grab that early goal then anything could happen.

That said, I don’t think Basel would see a low-scoring defeat at Old Trafford as such a bad result and I certainly don’t expect to see them go gung-ho in search of goals themselves, even if they are a goal or two behind. I think they’ll remain patient and probably see their best chance of scoring coming from a corner or other set-piece around the box.

The other side of the coin is that, should we get ourselves into a comfortable lead, Fergie might start to make some changes as he attempts to give players much-needed game time and this could work either way, too.

Obviously, I expect us to win this evening but I don’t think we’ll be winning by a huge margin and a scoreline of 2-0 is calling out to me. However, I am going to steer clear of making any kind of prediction based on the result here and instead base it around my belief that the first goal of the match will be scored quite early.

The bet is 2 points on the first goal being scored within 27 minutes @ 1.83 with Victor Chandler.