Manchester United's Rio Ferdinand aims to ease Paul Pogba's concerns over his Old Trafford future

Meanwhile, Greater Manchester Police are to increase patrols in the city ahead of the Ajax game with 1,000 Dutch supporters expected to travel without tickets for the game. Ajax have been given an allocation of 3,900 tickets.

United are bracing themselves for a massive dip in media revenues following their exit from the Champions League. While United were able to confirm growth in all areas when they announced second-quarter results on Tuesday, they also know the effect of being dumped into the Europa League is still to be felt.

It is estimated they will lose approximately £3 million per round in prize-money alone by being in Uefa’s secondary competition.

However, while they acknowledge revenues will dip, United insist that will have no impact on manager Sir Alex Ferguson’s ability to compete in the transfer market.

Ferguson has consistently argued he will not pay over the odds for players and refused to splash out the huge amount of money it would have cost to take Wesley Sneijder to Old Trafford from Inter Milan in the summer after previously missing out on alternative targets Luka Modric and Samir Nasri.

This stance cuts little ice with critics of the Glazer ownership at United though. They have noted a further buyback of the £500million bond issue, meaning the debt has now been reduced by £92.8 million.