The Philips Stadion is the venue for the return to Champions League action of Manchester United with the Dutch champions PSV Eindhoven providing a test for Louis van Gaal’s ambitions.
The team are in the Netherlands today to begin their preparations for Tuesday’s match with all eyes for once not on Wayne Rooney who has been ruled out through injury and with Memphis Depay returning to the club he helped qualify for the Champions League. United seemed to cope well against Liverpool without their talismanic captain and it will be pleasing to van Gaal that Anthony Martial scored a superb individual effort to make the perfect debut after more than a few eyebrows were raised over the deal.
Memphis Depay will return to the side that sold him early in the summer in some twist of fate that provides extra interest to this contest. PSV will be as familiar to him as they will be to him but it will be interesting to see who will take advantage of the famililarty. Memphis has so far made a good start for United, Particularly in the Champions League play-off with his brace against Club Brugge.
PSV go into this match after a 6-0 thrashing of 10-man Cambuur Leeuwarden with Luuk de Jong scoring a hat-trick against their hapless Eredivisie opponents who have shipped 20 goals in five games. PSV as a result are 4th after 5 matches in the Eredivisie behind Feyenoord, Heracles and Ajax.
David De Gea returned to action after agreeing a bumper new deal worth £40m but was unable to keep a clean sheet despite a great performance but it did take a Benteke wondergoal to beat him.
Herrera and Blind were also on the scoresheet for United at the weekend with the later scoring from a well-worked Mata free kick after a dull first half. It could certainly take some training ground magic to unlock the defences of some of the matches to come.
With Wolfsburg being favourites to progress with Man Utd in Group B, anything but getting off to a start that will put points on the board is going to make qualification difficult in what could be a tricky and close group.
Wolfsburg host CSKA who also had to pre-qualify by beating Sporting 4-3 in the other Group B match.
United will be something of a step up in class compared to Cambuur Leeuwarden and the fans will be hoping that the dutch connection will serve them well in these sometimes difficult and nervy early Champions League games.
I am going to go for a 2-1 Manchester United away win with Martial on the scoresheet. Leave your predictions below!
Kick Off: Tuesday 15th September 2015 19:45 BST
Source: DSG
