Graham Stuart, meanwhile, is struggling with a knee injury.Barry Hayles, who missed Fulham’s opening two Premiership matches through suspension, returns to the squad for their Intertoto Cup final second leg against Bologna at Loftus Road.Fulham, with no injury problem, will select from the same squad that secured a 2-2 draw in the first leg in Italy.. Much of the build-up to Manchester United’s Champions’ League qualifying tie against Zalaegerszeg at Old Trafford tonight has focused on the financial price of failure. This is estimated at a minimum £15m for the club, rising to £40m had they gone on to win Europe’s premier competition. It would also sting ITV, Nike and Vodafone, respectively the Champions’ League broadcaster, United’s kit manufacturers and their sponsors, for a few million apiece. As United have piled up the domestic honours Sir Alex Ferguson has become increasingly fixated on European success. He has always been more interested in the next trophy than the last, and is less interested in cementing his personal place in history than people imagine. But he believes his team deserves to be regarded among the European greats and is acutely aware they are yet to earn that right.Ferguson wants United to be mentioned in the same hushed tones as such multiple champions as the Ajax and Bayern Munich teams of the Seventies, Liverpool of the Eighties and the current Real Madrid line-up.

At present there is a danger that United’s 1999 triumph will come to be seen as a one-off, just like their 1968 win, or those of Steaua Bucharest and Red Star Belgrade.Ferguson’s hunger is, though, nothing compared to that of Roy Keane. In his infamous autobiography, Keane recalls 1999 in withering terms. “The champagne was flowing, people were going crazy – but my belief was we had been lucky against a Bayern Munich team that bottled it.”The passage reeks of envy. Keane, having been central to United’s passage to the Barcelona final, missed it through suspension. Thus while his team-mates, after each subsequent European failure, consoled themselves with the memory of 1999, Keane felt only pain and frustration.

At first, he admits in his book, “I kept my mouth shut”, but in the last two seasons this manifested itself in angry denunciations of his colleagues’ desire. “It drove me crazy then, it drives me crazy now,” he added of the wallowing in 1999.One fears such a sentiment is not just his ghost-writer’s “poetic licence”. Keane has never appeared serene, but in recent seasons he has moved closer and closer toward the edge of reason. This season, there is a genuine concern he may fall over it completely, as Eric Cantona did at Selhurst Park.

The way Keane berated team-mates on Friday, even after he had been at fault for Chelsea’s opener, suggested his tempestuous exit from the Irish camp has done nothing to quell his demons. With his international career apparently over, Europe is now Keane’s biggest stage and the impact of United failing to reach the group stages of the Champions’ League can only be guessed.Fortunately for Keane’s peace of mind Zalaegerszeg are unlikely to withstand the United assault he will tonight orchestrate. Since the match a fortnight ago, the Hungarian champions have conceded six goals and taken one point from two domestic fixtures. The most recent result was Saturday’s 3-0 defeat to MTK of Budapest.While United have not been entirely convincing either, Ferguson was justifiably encouraged by their second half at Stamford Bridge. This featured United’s best football so far this season and Ferguson said: “If we get anywhere near what we produced on Friday night we will win easily Against a good Chelsea side we reached a really high level. It was an impressive performance.”Having been on the bench then, Juan Sebastian Veron is likely to be omitted again tonight. Ferguson’s other decisions concern who supports Ruud van Nistelrooy in attack and whether to risk Rio Ferdinand in central defence.