Being beaten 2-1 by Sunderland in the first leg of this tie would normally be regarded as something of a shock but… not to worry… we’ll sort it out at Old Trafford.
This season, however, it was much less of a shock. There was almost a feeling of inevitability that the club at the foot of the Premier League table would get one over on us at their place.
Most worrying, however, is the feeling that Old Trafford is nowhere near the fortress it was until just last season.
Four teams have already beaten us here in the league this season and we have actually picked up more points away from home than at Old Trafford.
With Vidic being stupidly red carded against Chelsea at the weekend, he’s going to miss this one so it looks like Moyes will have to go with Smalling (or Jones) and Evans in defence.
I have a sneaky feeling that he may go with Fletcher and Cleverley in midfield and Hernandez and Welbeck up front with Januzaj and probably Valencia taking the wider positions.
In short, it is looking weakened in every department.
Our defence is my greatest concern at the moment, though.
In recent years, we haven’t been massively prolific scorers – goals from midfield have almost completely dried up and whilst the signing of Fellaini may have raised a few eyebrows, the sad fact is that he scored more goals for Everton last year than our entire midfield combined.
Without Rooney and Van Persie, our goalscoring threat is obviously drastically reduced, too.
However, we have usually been able to overcome this kind of problem in the past by having a pretty watertight defence.
Our defence against Chelsea on Sunday was appallingly poor. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I would have thought I was watchinga Sunday League team consisting of players who’d only just met each other that morning.
At set-pieces, no one seemed to know who they were supposed to be picking up or even roughly where they were supposed to be standing.
Matches between Chelsea and United had always been tight affairs; usually separated by a moment of genius, a silly mistake or a bad refereeing decision.
On Sunday, Chelsea probably couldn’t believe how easy it was for them to open up a 3-0 lead even though we’d probably enjoyed the lion’s share of possession.
What this has to do with tonight is that there can be no repeat. We’re not scoring bucketloads and, at 2-1 down, should Sunderland take a lead here, they’re going to be well and truly in the driving seat.
Whoever plays tonight, I want to see us really go for it. I want to see a fast tempo and plenty of players getting into the box. I want to see us 2-0 up by half-time.
Failing that, I’d settle for us not defending like a bunch of complete muppets. That, at least, would give me some confidence in this team moving forward.