ON A STAGE, flanked by footballers, a television host and a referee, Gary Neville was the first club captain to commit his signature to the Premier League Players’ Charter. It was a grandiose, age-of-Sky-Sports moment. Neville, while happy to support a programme aimed at respecting match officials, would rather have put his name on a different document, in a more private ceremony. “Wish that had been a new Manchester United contract,” he joked. Neville has one year left on his current deal and the next few months to earn an extension with the Red Devils. “Yes,” he acknowledged. “This is it. Should be good, shouldn’t it?”

The 33-year-old has never pretended he was first in line when talent was being handed out, but it’s difficult to imagine who might have been in front of him in the queue when self-belief was given away. The determined tone of his quip suggests Neville is backing himself to reclaim the place among Sir Alex Ferguson’s first picks that means even more to him than the captain’s arm-band. “My ambitions are the same as when I was 20, which is to get into the team and play in a team that wins trophies for Manchester United,” he said.

Ferguson fully expects Neville to win that extension. “He’ll have no problems. He’ll be offered a new contract, I’m sure of that,” said the manager. “He’s a remarkable person.” Ferguson is leaning towards giving Neville his first league game for 17 months against Newcastle today. Since appearing against Bolton in March 2007, Neville has made just one short competitive outing, as a substitute against Roma in April, appeared in friendlies and excelled in the Community Shield, but now it is truth time.

If Neville cannot prove he is back to old levels after so long out through ankle and calf injuries, there will be no sentiment from his manager. “With Wes Brown having the season he did last year, I have to respect that,” Ferguson said. And there is another, unexpected, threat: Rafael Da Silva, a Brazilian signed as a professional (after a two-year association with United) on his 18th birthday in July and spoken about with an unusual pitch of excitement by Ferguson. You may not have heard of him, but make no mistake, Da Silva is a first-team contender already. Ferguson said: “He’s a player, the boy. He makes it [selection] difficult but that’s what happens in football, some young guy just comes out of nowhere and takes your position.”

Da Silva’s identical twin, Fabio, scored spectacularly in midweek for United’s reserves and is rated an even greater prospect in Brazil. He is a left-back and Neville knows to take the claims of the siblings seriously. After all, he and his brother, Phil, materialised in Ferguson’s first team in the mid1990s and the progress of the “Brazilian Nevilles” at United could be just as sudden.

“It will be difficult for me because there are players who did well last season and players coming through and I was out for 17 months. You’d say these things go against me,” Neville said, “but I know full well the level of performance I achieved before I was injured. My, I suppose, desire and determination is something within me which will not wane. All I ask is I stay fit. If I do, it’s in my hands.”

The Da Silvas are one reason Neville feels that walking on to the pitch this afternoon might be like stepping from a time machine. When his career was frozen, as if cryogenically, those 17 months ago, full-back was played a certain way. Now he has been reawakened and it is the future. Players such as Patrice Evra and Gael Clichy took the position to another dimension last season in terms of athleticism and attacking flair, and the Da Silvas possess similar traits. “I saw Rafael [make his first-team debut] in the friendly against Peterbor-ough and I didn’t particularly like what I saw,” Neville said. “On a serious note, he has absolutely fantastic potential. His level of fitness and skill: it’s the way the game is going now. Us old, solid right-backs don’t seem to be the way forward, it’s going in the other direction.

“Cafu and Roberto Carlos did it over the years, there’s Evra now and I watch Rafael and his brother. English full-backs have got to take a lead from players like them. Five or six years ago I changed my game by making a conscious decision to go forward more and get more involved in attacks. We’ve got to become more European in our thinking. There’s always a case for keeping your back four as a unit, especially in English football, but modern full-backs are becoming more like wide players, with the midfielders there to cover. It’s the wide players in a team who give it an extra dimension, and that’s not just your wingers but your full-backs.

“I can give Rafael and his brother advice, but they can also teach me. They’re brilliantly talented and I watch how these lads play and the way the modern game is developing and that can hopefully develop my game.”

The length of Neville’s lay-off, after what initially appeared to be a routine problem, caused fears that he might be finished. A “niggle” prevented him taking full part in United’s preseason programme, but he insisted: “Generally everything feels pretty good.” In Moscow in May, his was the only frowning United face as players walked through the postmatch mixed zone, reflecting his frustration at having been unable to influence one of his club’s greatest campaigns.

“I didn’t go on the podiums last season. It wouldn’t have been right – I didn’t play any part of it. This season it is so important to hit the ground running, get out on the field and contribute. The worst thing about being injured is you don’t feel as if you’ve helped. You feel useless. At times it’s embarrassing being injured for so long.”

Such earnestness is typical of a player about whom there is a story, perhaps apocryphal, that he once jogged up and down the aisle of the plane on the way home from a European away trip, announcing to baffled onlookers: “My preparation for the next game starts here.”

Neville is the embodiment of United’s drive. “Arsenal and Liverpool will want to be closer to us and the signings they’ve made suggest they’re attempting to get there. We won the Champions League and Premier League, though but for a penalty [in Moscow] and last-minute goals in the league it would have been Chelsea. It’s fine lines that win these trophies and we’re not sitting here thinking we’re the best team in the world. We have to work even harder. We’ve a manager who never allows us to be complacent.

“The argument about it being Can Newcastle end 36-year famine?

Newcastle last won a league game at Old Trafford in February 1972, and their prospects don’t look too bright this afternoon – Manchester United have scored more goals on the opening weekend of the Premier League season than any other team, 31.

Manchester United won 17 of 19 Premier League home games in 2007-08, but failed to keep a clean sheet in their final two home matches The champions have scored at least once in their last 18 Premier League home games

Michael Owen has scored nine of Newcastle's last 18 goals in the Premier League

Newcastle have won only one of their last five league games. Since 2003, they have won only two Premier League games in August and they conceded 11 goals against the champions in 2007-08

Manchester United have won 11 and drawn two of their last 13 league games against Newcastle

Wayne Rooney, inset, has scored eight goals in eight league games for the champions against Newcastle Source: Opta stats his last season has been around for the last six or seven. I don’t see any drop-off from him. I don’t see any difference in him to six, seven, eight, nine years ago. When somebody’s still achieving success after 20 years and building teams, you can’t ever see an ending. He’s building for the future. He’s not buying players that tell you he’s looking at just one more season.”

For Neville “the next trophy is as precious as the first, in fact it’s more precious because of my age”. Even collecting the Community Shield, never regarded as more than a bauble by United, was special. On Friday, to aid club charities, United staff were sponsored to wear something red to the training ground at Carrington. David Gill, the chief executive, sported a red shirt; Di Law, the club’s press officer, wore red shoes. For Neville it was “come as you are”. He wears his redness, like a crown, every day.