Manchester United's finances laid another golden egg yesterday, although tonight (Network 2, UTV, from 7.30), in the Champions League, Alex Ferguson's team will be treading on egg-shells of a more fragile kind. Annual pre-tax profits at Old Trafford may have leapt by 79 per cent, but if United again plunge into the red against Juventus their balance sheet in Europe will begin to wear a familiar look of foreboding.
Having beaten Feyenoord 5-1 a fortnight ago while United were winning 3-0 in Kosice, Juventus are even firmer favourites to win Group B. If the Italian side avoid defeat this evening, and even more so if they repeat last November's victory at Old Trafford, it will take a lot to stop them reaching the quarter-finals.
With only the two best-placed of the six runners-up going through this season, Manchester United's fall-back position is less secure than it was last time when they lost three of their group games but still qualified for the last eight.
This is why Ferguson knows that anything less than a victory tonight will be bad news for his chances of adding the Champions League to his lengthy list of managerial honours.
It is not the best time, then, to be going into a match with Roy Keane a likely absentee. The Manchester United captain hurt a knee in Saturday's match at Leeds, where United were beaten for the first time this season, and with the joint still swollen, his prospects for tonight look very slim.
Fortunately for Ferguson, Nicky Butt, who was not risked at Elland Road because of a dead leg, will be fit to face the combined French might of Zinedine Zidane and Didier Deschamps in the Juventus midfield. And with Ryan Giggs sufficiently recovered from a strained hamstring to return to the side, United will not be bereft of the player whose inspiration on the left wing came so close to turning the match against Juventus 10 months ago.
Yet even if Manchester United were at full strength the task facing them would still be daunting. Juventus, who twice defeated United last season, have not lost to English opposition since a late goal from Arsenal's Paul Vaessen in Turin eliminated them from the 1979-80 Cup Winners' Cup. More pertinently, Juventus have only been beaten once in 13 Champions League group matches.
Tonight they will come on in much the same old way. Yet again Juve have parted company with two of their strikers, Alen Boksic and Christian Vieri following Gianluca Vialli and Fabrizio Ravanelli out of the club, but without altering their way of playing.
Except that the present pairing of Filippo Inzaghi, signed from Atalanta in the summer for £8.5 million, and Alessandro Del Piero may be even better equipped to take on the Manchester United centre-backs, and especially Gary Pallister, for pace and perception.
Inzaghi was the leading scorer in Serie A last season with 24 goals. So far this season he has scored three times for Juventus in four Italian league games, and he also found the net once against Feyenoord.
"From what I've seen of the lad his only thought is to score," Ferguson said yesterday. "Both of the Juventus front players now are very sharp and very quick. This is the only real difference in the team. Their previous strikers were stronger physically."
Ferguson's needs sounded simple enough yesterday. "We have to score on our own ground," he said, "and if we can do that I think we've got a good chance."
Last season it was a failure to snap up opportunities which at one time looked like preventing Manchester United reaching the knock-out stage and when they did, having apparently solved the problem with a 4-0 victory over Porto in the quarter-finals, missed chances cost them dearly when they met Borussia Dortmund for a place in the final.
The United manager will decide on the makeup of his attack today but it seems likely that Teddy Sheringham and Ole Solskjaer will be asked to take on Ciro Ferrara and Paolo Montero, the Juventus centre-backs, in the hope that Giggs, Paul Scholes and David Beckham will also find space and time within scoring range.
Juventus have Angelo Di Livio suspended and Antonio Conte struggling with an injury. Tonight Zidane and Deschamps look like being flanked by Alessio Tacchinardi and Fabio Pecchia.
At this early stage in the Champions League the Italian team will play it tight but Zidane will not have forgotten how he ruled the first half of last season's match at Old Trafford and Manchester United will need to remember, from Turin a year ago, how easily a goal can be lost to this class of opposition.
Manchester United release end-of-year accounts and announce launch of their own TV channel. See Business: Page 18.
Roy Keane underwent an exploratory operation on a damaged knee yesterday and could be out of the game for several weeks, according to newspaper reports. It is feared he may have suffered ligament damage.
