Manchester United vs Rangers
Tuesday | 14 September 2010 | KO:19:45 | Old Trafford

The Uefa Champions League returns with the group stage match on Tuesday night between Manchester United and Glasgow Rangers.

United have made an unbeaten start to their Premier League campaign, winning both home games 3-0 against Newcastle and West Ham respectively but dropping points away from home in a 2-2 draw at Fulham and most recently a 3-3 draw at Everton. The spectacular ending to the game at Goodison last Saturday which saw Everton score twice in injury time to snatch a point will have hurt big time. Rooney, who was taken out of the firing line at the weekend will be expected to return, fired up.

In the group stages last season, United won their first 3 matches to all but assure qualification and then took their foot off the pedal. In their home matches they beat Wolfsburg 2-1 first up but dropped points against CSKA (3-3) before suffering a rare European home defeat to Besiktas (1-0).

United have a massive game coming up at the weekend when they host Liverpool in the Premier League.

Rangers have won all 4 of the SPL matches so far with Kenny Miller in great form with 6 of their 9 goals. The strength of the opposition has to be taken into consideration and they have relied on goals in the second half of their matches, especially at the weekend where a late Miller goal gave them maximum points from their visit to Hamilton. Although the Scottish national team were almost humbled by Liechtenstein last week, only 4 of Saturday's starting XI were local players and they have the option of using two big lads up front in James Beattie and Kyle Lafferty.

Rangers featured in the group stage of last season's Champions League but they never threatened to reach the knockout stages and failed to win any of their group matches. They did draw 1-1 at Stuttgart and Unirea but went down 1-0 in Sevilla.

This will be the first meeting between the sides since 2003 when United won 3-0 at home at 1-0 in Glasgow. United did face opposition from Glasgow in the form of Celtic in 2008, again winning 3-0 at home and drawing 1-1 away.