Strachan says team are so small that he's looking for Snow White to lead them out!
Sir Alex Ferguson is expecting both Group E ties against Gordon Strachan's Celtic to match the games they played two years ago, when United won 3-2 at Old Trafford and Celtic won the return 1-0 in Glasgow with Shunsuke Nakamura's stunning free-kick.
In fact Nakamura superb strike was a repeat of the feat he had performed at Old Trafford in the first leg and Fergie remembers him well "'Nakamura is an exceptional talent at set-pieces. I'd be very surprised if we lost a goal like that again having discussed it so many times since then. There have been a few rockets given out." he said.
Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink also scored on Celtic's last visit and his was another name on Ferguson's lips, or rather it wasn't "They'll miss the physical presence of Van Hennegor or whatever ye call him....him fae Castlemilk anyway" he said to much laughter.
"You can say it's a local derby. It's Scotland-England, but Scottish and English have the same mentality and both teams will have a go," he told reporters, "That's in the nature and it's in Celtic's history. They are not going to sit back. It will be an open game and it will be a good game. We won't get carried away simply because our home record is good and Celtic's away record is bad."
Celtic boss Strachan will certainly miss his hard-to-pronounce Dutch striker especially as Jan's equally tall striking partner Georgios Samaras is also missing through injury. With backup forward Chris Killen also unavailable the manager is resigned to fielding a diminutive forward line in this latest Battle of Britain clash.
"We were looking for Snow White to lead them out!" he said "On the physical side, we are short on stature with Vennegoor of Hesselink, Samaras and Chris Killen ruled out. United have some big guys. Fletcher is a giant. Ferdinand and Vidic, obviously. Berbatov is a giant, O'Shea is a big guy. I left out Andreas Hinkel and Mark Wilson at Inverness to play Glenn Loovens at right back simply to give us a bit more in terms of stature, so we need to think about that. We have some smaller guys here."
Ferguson is still pondering over Cristiano Ronaldo's ability to perform twice a week at this stage of his recovery from surgery "We are looking at the situation against Celtic because it is Saturday-Tuesday in terms of games. If we had an extra day, it would be perfect for us, but are just looking at the situation and whether we should bring in Nani for this one, the one thing about Ronaldo is he can always score for you, he's such a talent in the box"
Sir Alex always enjoys matches against the Glasgow teams and and in reference to his popularity as an ex-hun he said "I am sure to get my usual great reception at Celtic. Maybe I'll stand in the centre-circle this time to get the full applause. But these games are special and quite apart from trying to get tickets, they give you a challenge."he continued,"I have friends who would not let me forget easily if we didn't win. The press up there wouldn't. It is great."
Tonight's game is live on ITV1, 7.30pm for 7.45pm kick-off.
Probable line-ups
Manchester United: Van der Sar; Brown, Vidic, Ferdinand, O'Shea; Fletcher, Anderson; Nani, Tevez, Rooney; Berbatov.
Celtic (4-4-1-1) : Boruc; Wilson or Loovens, Caldwell or Loovens, McManus, Naylor; Nakamura, Robson, Brown, McGeady; Maloney; McDonald.
Referee: Frank De Bleekere (Belgium).
Celtic's previous "Battles of Britain" in Europe's premier competition:
European Cup, semi-final 1969-70
Leeds 0 Celtic 1 (April 1970)
Celtic 2 Leeds 1 (April 1970)
Champions League, group stage 2006-07
Man Utd 3 Celtic 2 (Sept 2006)
Celtic 1 Man Utd 0 (Nov 2006)