PLAYING Manchester United at home is not just a massive football match, it’s also a celebration of winning promotion.

Your Arsenals, Chelseas and what nots are big, big games, but United takes the biscuit for me.

We’re playing the world champions, for goodness sake, and I urge every Stokie to enjoy the occasion from first to last.

I believe the atmosphere hasn’t been quite there for the last few home games, possibly because there was a greater expectation, but I’m sure the noise will be cranked up for this one.

It will be simply electric, particularly if we score first, and I know the home fans will be giving their players every chance of pulling off an upset.

Losing 5-0 at Old Trafford last month was a painful reminder of the gulf between the two teams, but that doesn’t mean Stoke can’t win this time.

This is a different day, different occasion, different pitch and totally different atmosphere.

There are household names everywhere you look in whatever team Sir Alex fields, but the one player I’d love to see out there is Paul Scholes.

He really is a joy to behold when you watch him live.

His tackling apart, perhaps, he is a brilliant all-round player, certainly better than David Beckham in my book, and I’d go as far as to say the best England midfielder we’ve seen for a generation or two.

Is there a weakness in the United ranks to be exploited?

Well, you have to look long and hard, but there may just be a chink of light at right-back because Gary Neville hasn’t played much in the last year, while young Rafael is a talented teenager going forward, but perhaps a little less assured defensively.

It goes without saying that Stoke will have to bring their A game in all areas, particularly at the back, and they certainly can’t defend like they did so fatally at Blackburn the other day.

United’s movement and interchanging is frightening, it really is, and defenders are rarely marking the same player twice in successive attacks because you have Wayne Rooney dropping deep, Cristiano Ronaldo coming inside, Dimitar Berbatov drifting wide and so on.

It will be interesting to see how Tony Pulis lines up at the back because he won’t have liked seeing Ryan Shawcross involved in all three Blackburn goals after being put at right-back.

So does he stick with Ibrahima Sonko’s experience in central defence, or twist by shifting Shawcross inside to his more accustomed position?

The answer will probably be who can handle the ball on the deck the better.

Much will also depend on whether Andy Griffin is fit to play at right-back, of course, and it’s obviously worrying for everyone to see so many experienced players out at one time.

Griff has been having a great season and is a leader out there, certainly one you’d want in the trenches against Manchester United.

Stoke fans were noisier than United fans at Old Trafford, so it will certainly be no contest with a seven to one advantage at the Britannia.

Let’s just hope that wall of noise not only needles United, but inspires Stoke to a truly memorable day’s work.