EVEN if Jose Mourinho is feeling the pressure right now, with the threat of a five-match winless run hanging over Manchester United for only the second time since 1999, Newcastle United’s Rafa Benitez will not be taking things lightly at Old Trafford.

The two Iberian managers, who have a long-standing rivalry dating back to their clashes between Liverpool and Chelsea, are enduring difficult periods at the two Uniteds as they prepare to go head-to-head again this evening.

So much so that Mourinho has warmed up for the occasion by insisting it will be “unacceptable” if Manchester United fail to beat the Magpies today, despite the ongoing speculation of the Portuguese’s problems with certain players like Paul Pogba and Antony Martial.

But Benitez has warned against complacency as he prepares to take Newcastle to Manchester, particularly as he is hardly in the strongest position himself.

While the club’s owner Mike Ashley this week told him he is the man to keep them up at a dinner in Ponteland, nothing can hide the fact they are still searching for a first win of the season and occupy a relegation spot. Benitez knows why.

Benitez said: “I know my time in England and I don’t remember any fragile Manchester United team. They always have good manager, good teams, they are strong every year. I can see a team that people can expect to be higher. It’s a question of time, we will see.

“It’s like us. If you remember last year for example we were in the bottom three, and people were saying ‘oh you are in the bottom three’. But if you look at the teams at the top, who spent the most money. Who were in the bottom three? Those who didn’t didn’t spend that much money. That’s a normal situation.

“We are in a position where we could expect to be because the fixtures were difficult. I have to be realistic and optimistic.

“It’s a long running race and we have to carry on, we finished tenth last year and we will look to carry on like we did last year. We will do our best to try to win the game and to score first.”

Benitez was talking about Manchester United’s situation, but the relevance could easily be associated with his time at Newcastle.

Last season there was a feeling that the Magpies over achieved by finishing tenth, but actually ended the summer window in profit this time around and is battling to get his players succeeding again.

Benitez said: “Who won the league two or three years ago? Leicester. Again, check the numbers apart from that, but which are the clubs that spent more than £100m this year (teams in the top six)?

“We have to compete with almost every team and we will try to do that. Sometimes you cannot and when you don’t have the confidence, if you can see it is more difficult, we are working on that.

“Luis Aragones was saying in Spain, you cannot buy confidence in the fifth floor of John Lewis. You have to keep working hard and that’s what we are doing.”

Newcastle will be without Salomon Rondon again today, while Paul Dummett and Federico Fernandez will be assessed late to see if they can play. Joselu’s disappointing display in attack has posed the question whether the time is right to start with Yoshinori Muto.

“Muto’s in the squad. He is closer. How close? You will see,” said Benitez. “The point with him is that you put in a foreign player and his English is not as good as we were expecting.

“The good thing that he has is that he’s always smiling. But the other day I was asking him some questions and he was smiling and saying ‘yes, yes, yes’ and he didn’t understand anything.

“Then you have to explain things to him slowly. You have to do some movement that he will understand, then you go to the videos and you analyse all these things.

“And then he is getting better in terms of understanding, that is the key. Each player and person is different. He will improve and he will improve his English and also in knowing his team-mates.

“The movement of his team-mates around him, he needs to know and he needs to be able to communicate. He is getting better.”