31 min: Richard Hirst has been back on: “Time to switch the spotlight away from the unfortunate Heaven? Given his predilection for kamikaze tackles and general mindlessness I’m surprised we haven’t heard more about a certain former Spurs central defender,: ‘wherefore art thou Rome(r)o?’”

He and Martinez were Argentina’s gruesome twosome at the summer’s World Cup.

The teams met in 1991 in the old European Cup Winners’ Cup, here’s the teams from the second leg. Atleti won 4-1 on aggregate.

United: Gary Walsh, Paul Parker, Steve Bruce, Clayton Blackmore, Neil Webb, Ryan Giggs, Bryan Robson, Mike Phelan, Mark Robins, Brian McClair, Mark Hughes

Atlético: Abel Resino, Juanito, Solozábal, Tomás, Toni Muñoz Donato, Moya, Bernd Schuster, Vizcaíno, Futre, Manolo

Peadar de Burca gets in touch: “This is one of those games, John, where you don’t tune it to see free-flowing joga bonita, dancing on the ceiling football, but because there’s a whiff in the air, a whiff of wounded sheep, the wolves are closing in and by cuss it’s hard to pull your eyes away. The beginning of the end for Carrick...?”

Michael Carrick speaks to the Amazon UK broadcast: “It’s where we want to be. Got a really good history of this competition and that’s where we want to challenge ourselves and test ourselves. you know, we’ve worked hard to be here. We want a reaction You know, we haven’t had the results that we wanted, that we expected. Fine margins in some of them games and it can go both ways, but the reality is exactly where we are now and this is a fresh opportunity.

“I think we want a get control without the ball and we want a lot more control with it whatever get. I think we’ve got a bit of flexibility. I think we need to defend as a whole team. But you have proved that we’re capable of doing that and we got to get back to that.”

Atlético Madrid: Oblak, Llorente, Romero, Hancko, Grimaldo, Simeone, Barrios, Cardoso, Alex Baena, Alvarez, Lee. Subs: Musso, Mendoza, Sorloth, Lookmnan, David, Ortiz, Pubill, Hjulmand, Le Normand, Lituba, Dani Martinez, Castillo.

Manchester United: Lammens, Dalot, Martinez, Heaven, Yoro, Santos, Baleba, Tielemans, B.Fernandes, Rashford, Mbeumo. Subs: Darlow, Mee, Amass, Armer, De Ligt, Maguire, Mount, T.Fletcher, Lacey, Amad, Cunha, Zirkzee.

With Manchester United and Michael Carrick careering towards the dumper, then travelling to face Diego Simeone’s Atleti is almost certainly not the fixture that would be handpicked. Though perhaps it can serve as some kind of turning point. Play as sluggishly as United have in their last two Premier League matches either side of the international break – Fulham and Tottenham – and there’s big trouble in store. Atlético have won their last four matches in La Liga, including a famous win in the Madrid derby. Their last Champions League match did, thouugh, see them lose at Anfield. If the competition’s bloated structure has its critics, and United can probably get away with losing in the scheme of reaching the knockouts, Carrick can barely afford to. Further to that, there may not be two more opposite touchline characters than Simeone and Carrick.