Evra Spurred On By Nightmare

Patrice Evra has not forgotten his United debut. In a sense, it was unforgettable: he was frighteningly out of his depth against, erm, Trevor Sinclair... Fergie took him off at half-time and nobody would have envisaged that he would go on to become the best left-back in the world.

'I remember that game very, very well,' he said.

'At one point the ball went out from a corner and I remember thinking, Pat, what are you doing here?

'The game was so quick, everyone was so strong and the whole thing was just too difficult.'

We lost 3-1 and though it would be unfair to blame Evra for everything that happened that day, he was certainly culpable on many occasions. Now of course it's a different story: he's strong, quick and reliable, offering flair in attack as well. Fortunately he had the courage, the guts to stay and fight.

'I really wanted to play for this club, so I just decided to work even harder and thankfully, it has worked,' he said.

Now he gets to visit Eastlands again, Evra's hoping for his second win there. A very different player to the one who looked like a rabbit frozen in the headlights almost three years ago, we can be reasonably confident that he'll be up to his task.

Click here to join in the debate on the club forum.