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And so to Inter.
Pretty much all the talk in the papers is of the managers. What might happen on the pitch is not much speculated on, all the action is off it.
Mourinho seems to have learned his lesson from the first leg, with no outlandish statements being uttered, he still sounds confident, but there is also a great deal of respect for our team. Of course this could just be another tactic in the battle of wills, or it could be that he knows the likely outcome of the game. Take this quote, from The Telegraph, asked about the taking over from Sir Alex thing:

"In 20 years maybe?'' Mourinho smiled. "He's tough, he's strong. He's happy, he loves it, he wins, so let him be for 20 more years, I hope.'' He could understand why Ferguson would want to continue with his superlative squad. "They have a top team, lots of options, and are very well organised in defence. They don't concede many.

"In attack they have a group of incredible strikers. He can choose the combinations he wants. If he prefers a targetman he goes for Dimitar Berbatov. If he prefers speed and movement he goes for Carlos Tevez. He has this ammunition in his hands and he is clever in the way he does it.

"United are never predictable. You have to read their game, you have to adapt to them. On the bench they have people who create an impact. They are a very difficult side. But they know that this game will be very difficult for them.''

Unlike the first game where he was talking of how we would change to play his side we now have him talking of how Inter must change. And even when he talks of Inter winning he still talks us up, from The Times:

“We will be trying to do it against what I have to say is a very good team,” he said. “We know what we have to do. We know our qualities and how we can create problems for them. They know it is going to be difficult for them.”

Sir Alex sounded quietly confident, this from The Times:

“It doesn’t bother me one bit, Mourinho’s record against me,” Ferguson said when pushed on the subject. “It proves I’m not infallible. I’m vulnerable to losing matches, as everyone in football is, but it doesn’t concern me. We have every right to be proud of this football club and what we’ve achieved here.”

The point here is that Ferguson’s dynasty at United, which has recovered from the difficulties of 2004 and is now striving towards even greater achievements, is so impressive that the poor record against Mourinho barely registers as a scratch on the surface.

The Daily Star suggest Sir Alex was indulging in the famous "mind games" when he mentioned AC Milan's record in Europe:

he reminded Mourinho of his own skill at mind games when he taunted Inter, who won the last of their two European Cups 44 years ago.

He said: “AC Milan have won the European Cup seven times and I think they are probably the most successful side in the sense that they won the trophies in the modern day, whereas Real Madrid won their first five when European football was just beginning.

“I think Milan have to be regarded as the best European club of all time.”

The Independent remind us, as if we could forget, of how unlucky we were to lose against Mourinho's Porto in 2004, among Mourinho's own words on the subject:

Mourinho has reasons to relish European nights at the place which, he said yesterday, had changed his life utterly after he brought the Porto side there which eliminated Ferguson's five years ago on Monday. The win was courtesy of a 90th-minute close-range shot by Costinho, who capitalised on a blunder by the United goalkeeper Tim Howard. Mourinho famously danced down the Old Trafford touchline and his side of unknowns went on to capture the trophy.

"That was the goal which opened doors in England for me," Mourinho reflected. "Because of that goal we could win the competition. Without it we wouldn't even have reached the quarter final. Porto was the kind of team [I] had under my skin because it was my team.

"I made it from day one. It was a team only with kids and year after years we were champions of Portugal. For this group that nobody respected much at that time to come here and beat Manchester United and win the competition was something fantastic."

The win contributed to an extraordinary statistic where Ferguson and his opposing manager are concerned: the Scot has defeated Mourinho only once in 13 attempts, with the draw in San Siro last month creating the kind of knife-edge second leg dynamic which he always hates.

Taking advantage of the weekend comments on Mourinho taking over at Old Trafford there's a couple of articles on the subject; The Guardian blog has "The Big Debate: Is Jose Mourinho a suitable candidate for the United job?" with James Richardson taking the No side, and it's well worth a read:

Mourinho at old Trafford? It's an intriguing idea, in much the same way as Mourinho in Dancing on Ice is an intriguing idea. But Jose actually in charge of Sir Alex's magnificent legacy? Jose addressing the world from the Old Trafford pulpit? Who in their right mind would want that?
...
In short, with his domestic success based more on fortuitous refereeing and the odd superb individual performance than any tactical masterplan, and a deteriorating rapport with his players Mourinho's become the Portuguese Rafa Benítez, just better with the press. Is that really what Old Trafford wants?

When you put it like that...
Martin Samuel in The Mail argues that it would be a good thing, but he argues from the perspective of the neutral who would appreciate the entertainment Mourinho brings:

The public has a love-hate relationship with arrogance, particularly in the sporting sense. When Jose Mourinho was manager of Chelsea he only had to stand imperiously on the touchline in that grey overcoat to send collective blood pressure through the roof. Yet who beyond Manchester did not secretly adore that pitch-side sprint when his Porto team scored at Old Trafford.

Wouldn't you rather see a bit of that spirit against Manchester United now, rather than the timid displays inspired by managers who seem to have taken their attitude to the champions from Uriah Heep’s Big Book of Tactics? The next time Fulham play United, they should take cameras and autograph books and at least get a signed Wayne Rooney duvet out of it.

Mourinho was often polite about United, and Sir Alex Ferguson, their manager, but that does not stick in the mind, either. He will always be The Special One, the man who picked fights with everyone from Rafael Benitez to the Reading ambulance service. He was the manager who named not only his starting XI before an important Champions League tie but Barcelona’s as well, infuriating their coach, Frank Rijkaard. And we miss him.

And The Mail reports on Mourinho meeting Phil Neville:

Mourinho and Neville enjoyed a drink together at about 10pm in the Hilton Hotel bar in Manchester.

'We talked about football,' said Mourinho today. 'Football and different cultures.

'It was normal. He asked me about coaching and I told him a few things that maybe he didn't know about it.'

Paolo Bandini on The Guardian Sports Blog warns about Inter being better on the road, and in the same place Kevin McCarra looks at how our style of play has evolved to the point where we should have few problems against Inter.

The Sun has a source that tells us Sir Alex may retire:

“Alex is completely focused on winning the European Cup for a third time,” a close friend admitted.

“He wouldn’t thank you for calling it an obsession but that’s what it is. And when he wins it, and he believes it will be this season or next, he’ll retire a very contented man.”

I should hope he is focused on it the day before the Inter match. The Sun then has a very long article on the ins and outs of the "retirement".
Finally a story that has nothing to do with us but the headline is just too good to ignore - story on Robin Van Persie cutting back on meat in The Sun, headline "Van Parsnip pushed to the Veg".