THE streams of water that poured through the roof of Manchester United’s home stadium in the immediate aftermath of Sunday’s defeat to Arsenal could hardly have been more fitting. When Newcastle United visit Old Trafford tomorrow, they will be heading to a football club that is quite literally falling apart.

A humiliating thrashing at Crystal Palace followed by a home defeat to a title-chasing side that could once be regarded as rivals. Casemiro ambling around at centre-half, with some of the country’s leading pundits suggesting he should be pensioned off to Saudi Arabia this summer. Erik ten Hag’s job as manager hanging by a thread, with the main argument for keeping the Dutchman seeming to be that if he leaves, things could get even worse. Eighth place in the league table, with a negative goal difference with just two games of the season to go. And that’s just the last week-and-a-half.

And yet. For all that the crisis that has been engulfing Manchester United for the vast majority of the season has undoubtedly intensified in the last month or so, tomorrow night’s game is still Newcastle heading to Old Trafford. They have won one of their last 38 league matches at the stadium. They have not completed a league double over Manchester United since the 1930-31 season. They have never finished above Manchester United in the Premier League era.

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The harsh lessons of the past against the promise of the present. The battle for a European place could well be determined by which wins out tomorrow.

“All of that makes them a very dangerous opponent,” said Howe, when presented with the arguments against a Manchester United victory. “They’ve got world-class players.

“With our preparations, I will speak to the players about what we need to do and how we need to play. I will make clear what our mindset needs to be, going into the game. We can’t underestimate the challenge in front of us. That would be foolish. That would counteract everything that we need to be in this game. Just trust that I’ll get the message to the players that we need to.”

That message will not attempt to downplay the significance of a game that can justifiably be regarded as something of a shootout for continental competition. Avoid defeat tomorrow, and Manchester United’s dreadful goal difference means Newcastle will effectively be guaranteed to finish in the top seven. If Manchester City win the FA Cup final later this month, that will be sufficient to secure a European place of some description next season.

There are those who would claim that Newcastle would be better off out of either the Europa League or Conference League next season, enabling them to focus pretty much all of their attention on the league. Last season, a Europe-free programme undoubtedly helped the Magpies finish in the top four.

The club is at a different stage of its journey under its Saudi Arabia-backed ownership group now though, making European football of any description an important part of the progression plan.

“We want European competition,” said Howe. “I’ve said that all along this season, regardless of what that looks like. I think we need to be there as a football club, that’s a driving force for us.

“We’ll embrace the extra games, the travel, the experience, everything about the competition. We feel we’re in a position to do it.”

And while the aim at the start of the season was clearly to secure a return to the Champions League, the extent of the challenges that have presented themselves over the course of the last nine months means a place in either the Europa League or Conference League would still represent a significant achievement, perhaps even on a par with last season’s gatecrashing of the top four.

“At different stages of the season, we’ve looked like different things were potentially available for us,” said Howe. “I think in the early stages of the season, we had a difficult start, fixture-wise that wasn’t ideal. We had to recover from that, and I thought we did and were on a really good path until we hit a rocky November and December.

“Then, the viewpoint was different, but by March, it had changed again. We didn’t have a good run of form for a while, but towards the end of the season, we’ve come back very strongly again.

“So, if you’re talking about reflections, it depends on the stage of the season and where we were. But all along, the players have displayed an incredible drive and ambition.

“They’ve never felt sorry for themselves or wallowed in any self-pity, even when top players have been missing or with Sandro’s (Tonali) suspension, all the things we’ve been hit with. They’ve just got on with it and given their best and, ultimately, we find ourselves in this position where we deserve to be. And we’ll try to finish the two games off in the right way.”