Chelsea's young pretender has the old master in his sights

Chelsea managers' first game against United

When Sir Alex Ferguson was appointed manager of Manchester United in November 1986, Andre Villas-Boas had celebrated his ninth birthday the previous month and was, by his own admission, too "in love" with his hometown team of Porto to pay much attention to the latest attempt by one of English football's faded giants to resurrect themselves.

Tomorrow at Old Trafford, Villas-Boas, 33, will shake hands with Ferguson, 69, before attempting to beat the old master. Whether he likes it or not, the issue of his relative youth will follow Villas-Boas around for some time yet and, it would be fair to say, that is never more significant than it will be tomorrow when he faces a man whose three sons are all older than Chelsea's new Portuguese manager.

Yesterday, ahead of the game against Manchester United, Villas-Boas walked a difficult line between being respectful to Ferguson without being overtly deferential. Of course the old boy deserves great respect for his achievements but no opposing manager should ever forget that Ferguson is first and foremost an adversary, and a bloody ruthless one at that. It does not help your cause to bend at the knee.

Furthermore, every English manager of this era has grown up with Ferguson as the dominant force of the last 18 years and he looms large over all of them. Villas-Boas, schooled in a very different football environment, one in which life revolved around his childhood obsession, Porto, the same is not so true. It was intriguing that on the subject of Jose Mourinho's occasional baiting of the likes of Arsène Wenger and Rafael Benitez, Villas-Boas said: "I don't feel it plays [sic] that much importance."

In a rare insight into his emotions, Villas-Boas said of his team selection: "I have to pick my team first, then the 18. When everybody is so good, it takes... you can almost become sentimental, but it takes a bit of my heart out."

Tomorrow will be two days short of the fourth anniversary of Mourinho's dramatic departure from Chelsea which itself came three days before a league game at Old Trafford. Villas-Boas left with him that evening, his last scouting dossier on United rendered redundant. Four years on, the protégé is back.