Ahead of the Super Cup final between Manchester United and Real Madrid, Jose Mourinho has claimed his team are a footballing giant but they need to assert themselves again to measure up with the club’s history. 

The club will always be a giant but our job is to try to bring the football team back to that stature.

That’s something really difficult these days: before, the giants were the powerful ones economically, and now there are small clubs in terms of prestige and history who are giants economically. That changes absolutely everything.

But my feeling is that I want the team to be on a par with the club’s history, which is something I’ve been lucky enough to feel at every club: there was the same kind of feeling at Inter and Real Madrid.

This is where we want to be. And obviously we’ll improve the team and try to be at that level.

Winning the Europa League means we will compete in the Champions League next season and Mourinho insists we have a point to prove.

We are new to the competition. It’s absolutely true that Manchester United are one of the top three football clubs in the world, no doubt about it, but the football club is one thing and the team’s credentials going into a competition are another thing entirely.

So we have a giant on our chest, one which is really heavy, but we don’t compare our potential to the biggest clubs in Europe right now. So we’ll take it step by step and be humble.

The first step is to try to finish in the top three. If we manage that, we’ll try to finish in the top two. Then, when you are in the Champions League last-16 draw, anything can happen.