Sir Alex Ferguson’s team, runners-up to Barcelona in last season’s competition, will endure the ignominy of demotion to the Europa League if they lose in St Jakob Park. A draw or victory will secure qualification to the knock-out stages for United. Having exited the Champions League at the group stage with a 2-1 defeat in Lisbon in December 2005, however, United are desperate to avoid history repeating itself against Basle. And Fletcher, an unused substitute during the Benfica defeat, admits that the memories of that night will play their part when United face the Swiss champions. “We’ve got experience of it not going right when it comes down to the last game, so we’ll try to draw from that and make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Fletcher said.
“There are a few of us still in the squad who experienced the disappointment of that night. “We’ll reiterate that experience to the rest of the lads, but they’re fully aware we don’t want that to be the case. “The difference now is we know how bad that felt the last time it happened, but we’re not thinking like that, we’re thinking about getting a positive result and we’ll go there to win the game.”United face the prospect of qualifying in second place in Group C, even if they beat Basle, due to leaders Benfica facing pointless Romanian champions Otelul Galati in Lisbon.
But Fletcher admits that United only have themselves to blame for their inability to confirm qualification before the final group game. Fletcher said: “If you don’t win your home games in the Champions League then it’s not going to be as easy as you’d like [to qualify]. “So we look to those two home draws against Benfica and Basle as the reason why we’re not where we’d like to be, but we can’t do anything about that now. “We can only deal with what’s in front of us in the position we’re in and challenge that obstacle. That means going to Basle and not losing, while trying to win the game.”