Patrick Vieira will line up against Manchester United again tonight

Jose Mourinho has decided to start Patrick Vieira and Mario Balotelli against Manchester United tonight while Walter Samuel returns to the Inter Milan defence. Carlos Tevez’ reward for scoring twice against Fulham is a place on the bench while Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes both start in midfield.

Arsene Wenger has named the same eleven players for Arsenal that started the 1-0 win over Roma a fortnight ago. As well as indicating that the Frenchman doesn’t intend to adopt a safety-first approach, it means he has Theo Walcott and Eduardo waiting in the wings to make an impact of the bench.

The Special one is off to a bad start in Italy

This week, the annual Trofeo TIM pitted the top three clubs in Italy against one another, and Jose Mourinho was given his first run out in front of the Italian big boys. Unfortunately, Inter lost to eventual trophy winners Milan 4-3 on penalties after a deadlocked ninety minutes (that’s ninety special Italian 30-second minutes. See comment below, Ed.), and they put in a disappointing performance in a 1-0 loss to Juventus.

Jose’s excuse for the sub par performance was the Nerazzurri’s over-crowded treatment table - in Tuesday’s loss to Juve Marco Materazzi joined Cristian Chivu, Ivan Cordoba and Walter Samuel on the sidelines - and he has brushed off the friendly tournament as a trifling matter:

“Fortunately, we could afford to lose the two friendly games we played. The important games will start in one month and we