OLIVER HOLT: If you’re laughing at the idea that United’s 1999 Treble winners are equal to this City team you’re a FOOL… whatever Pep’s side achieve, it will not diminish the magnitude of their achievement

There is a passage in Matt Dickinson’s brilliant book ‘1999: Manchester United, the Treble and All That’ which recalls a snatched interview with Peter Schmeichel at an airport check-in desk before the club’s 1997 Champions League semi-final first leg with Borussia Dortmund.

Asked to compare the United side he was playing in with Sir Matt Busby’s great team that won the European Cup in 1968, Schmeichel made considered points about the pace of the modern game and improvements in players’ fitness and conditioning and concluded: ‘We would beat them 10-0.’

Schmeichel did not mean to be dismissive.