United have had a free week, while Everton travel to Ukraine today ahead of a delicate UEFA Cup first-round return tie with Metalist Kharkiv with their record signing Yakubu Ayegbeni admitting the club cannot afford to fail at the first hurdle of European competition once again.
David Moyes' side could have had the luxury of a comfortable first-leg lead over Metalist but two missed penalties from Andrew Johnson plus an away goal for a visiting team that finished with nine men in the 1-1 draw has put Everton in peril of another early exit.
In 2005 they went out in the third qualifying round of the Champions League to Villarreal and the first round of the Uefa Cup to Dinamo Bucharest, setbacks that had a demoralising effect on the remainder of their season.
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The Nigerian international Yakubu, who moved from Middlesbrough in an £11.25m deal this summer citing the need for European football, believes Everton have the squad to avoid a repeat of two years ago but concedes the pressure to progress will be acute in Ukraine."The guys worked so hard for 11 to 12 months to get into Europe and we need a good result," said the striker.
"We are under pressure because we don't want to concede goals and we are going to go there and give everything. We don't want to be out of this competition so soon. We want to win trophies and we want to get into the group stage. This is the players' dream."
Yakubu added: "Kharkiv are a good team but I don't think we should be worried because we have good players. We had chances to win the first game but the luck did not go for us. I am not scared about going there. I believe we will go to Kharkiv and get a result."