The Lionel Messi show arrives at Old Trafford

Barcelona take on Manchester United at Old Trafford on Wednesday, led by arguably the dominant version of Lionel Messi we’ve ever seen.

Lionel Messi has humiliated a lot of players in his time, but unfortunately none of those players was Phil Jones, who has elevated his own humiliation to a kind of art form.

Jones, alas, seems unlikely to start the first leg of Manchester United’s Champions League quarterfinal tie against Barcelona on Wednesday, but that shouldn’t significantly limit United’s capacity for defensive incompetence on what will be Messi’s first match against them since the final of this competition in 2011.

Then, the Red Devils’ back five consisted of Edwin van der Sar, Patrice Evra, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic and (for some reason) Fabio de Silva. On Wednesday, it’s likely to be David de Gea, Luke Shaw, Chris Smalling, Victor Lindelof and Ashley Young. One of those quintets is not like the other.

Still, we should be cautious about writing off United so soon. They proved against PSG that a little talent and a lot of self-belief can go a long way, and perhaps more importantly that doing almost nothing in possession is no obstacle to winning. Despite a dip in form since their win in Paris, United still retain a potent enough whiff of that magic to be reckoned with.

What Barca have that PSG did not, of course, is Messi, whose game over the past few years has been somehow, simultaneously, both refined and expanded. The Argentine spends most of his time on the pitch these days walking around, watching his opponents, deciding how exactly he wants to beat them.

When he does get the ball, he’s every kind of attacker at once: dribbler, passer, playmaker, tempo-setter, scorer, creator. Has a single player ever been asked to do so much for a supposedly elite team? There’s a compelling argument that Barca’s reliance on Messi will cost them in this competition at some point, but there’s an equally compelling argument a one-dimensional team is preferable to a multi-dimensional one when that single dimension is Messi.

Ernesto Valverde’s Barcelona are a strange team, slightly baggy around the edges, laid back in the way only a team of their supreme technical quality can be laid back. Not unlike the Real Madrid side that have dominated this competition for the past half decade, they look vulnerable right up until the moment they beat you.

Much of this is because of Messi, because of what they do to get the best out of him. There seem to be central midfielders all over the place, few of them actually in central midfield. There is Luis Suarez, running and running that forward-tilted run of his. There is Jordi Alba, eyeing the space behind the opposition right-back. There is Sergio Busquets, giving us all a heart attack. Sometimes Ousmane Dembele prances past a few defenders.

And then there is Messi, who makes it all make sense.