Ander Herrera tells Manchester United to prove themselves in the Champions League after six years without success

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On Monday, the familiar routine of the Champions League returns to Manchester United; the press conferences in the Europa Suite, the sound of the competition’s anthem being rehearsed and obligatory references to Old Trafford’s ‘great European nights’.

Even before Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement there have been precious few of those. Since losing the final to Barcelona in 2011, United have twice been eliminated in the group stages, twice failed to qualify and produced only one performance of note – a 3-0 win over Olympiakos after they had lost the first leg 2-0 in Athens. Tickets are still available for Tuesday’s opener against Basel.

When the draw was made, there were references to how easy it looked – Basel, Benfica and CSKA Moscow; routine opponents. United may have lost their 100 per cent Premier League start at Stoke on Saturday evening but, at roughly the same time, Basel lost at home to the Swiss League’s bottom club, Lausanne.

However, Ander Herrera asked his team to remember how they came to be in the competition, qualifying via the back door of the Europa League. They will be facing clubs who qualified for the Champions League because they are champions.

“We have to know where we are coming from,” said the United midfielder in the wake of the fast, feisty 2-2 draw with Stoke that saw a heated confrontation between the two managers, Jose Mourinho and Mark Hughes. “We came from the Europa League. We won it and it is a very good title but it is the Europa League. We were sixth in the Premier League so we have to respect every team we face because they deserve to be in the Champions League.

“We are a big club, maybe the biggest in the world, but we were not in the Champions League last season and we have to take it step by step. The first step is Basel. We cannot even think of winning it.”

The first step is against the Swiss champions who knocked Manchester United out of the group stages in 2012 and who will be facing the central defensive pairing of Chris Smalling and Victor Lindelof.

Both Eric Bailly and Phil Jones – both suspended against Basel - were criticised for failing to deal with Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, whose first two goals for Stoke emphasised his presence and strength. However, Smalling and Lindelof have not started since the Super Cup defeat by Real Madrid, when both looked badly exposed.

“Being in the Champions League is a basic for us which is why the Europa League final against Ajax was the game of our lives,” said Herrera. “But last season we did not fight for the Premier League and we were not in the Champions League so we have to be humble.”

Humility was a quality in short supply in the Potteries on Saturday. Mourinho refused to say why he had failed to shake Hughes’s hand but sources at Manchester United said it was because the Stoke manager had told him ‘to f*** off’. He then made the faintly ludicrous suggestion that United had been the only team that ‘wanted to win’.

Hughes admitted to pushing Mourinho when he wandered into his technical area. Stoke may have changed to the extent that the club’s squad boasts more Champions League winners than Manchester United’s but on the touchline, close to the play, Hughes has not changed. He is still Sparky.