MANU in semis with BARCA …

Gary Neville believes Manchester United FC have a "great chance" of going all the way to the UEFA Champions League final after completing a 3-0 aggregate victory over quarter-final opponents AS Roma.

United's 1-0 success on Wednesday night confirmed a semi-final showdown with FC Barcelona and Neville had extra cause for celebration after appearing for the first time since March last year as an 81st-minute substitute for Anderson. "It's good to be back, it's been a long time and I'm happy to be able to play a small part in what was a great result for us," he said. "This puts us into the semi-final and two magnificent games against Barcelona."

"We've got a great chance," added Neville, whose comeback from damaged ankle ligaments had been delayed by a series of niggling injuries. "When you get to the semi-final anything can happen. We're playing really well. Two years ago and particularly last year [when United lost to AC Milan in the semi-finals] maybe we weren't quite ready but this year there's a determination to go all the way."

The English champions have not faced Barcelona since two thrilling 3-3 draws in the group stage of the 1998/99 competition – a campaign, which ended with United triumphant in the final at Camp Nou. Neville predicted an "unbelievable" showpiece of attacking football over the two legs, the first of which is in Barcelona on 23 April with the return at Old Trafford six days later.

"Barcelona will be unbelievable games," he said. "The atmosphere will be brilliant, not just in Barcelona but at Old Trafford. Both teams will go for it. We played two games against them in '99 and they both ended 3-3 and that's the type of teams we are. Neither is defensive, we both play attacking football and there'll be some great players on show – I just hope our great players can outdo theirs."

Another United player to make his first European appearance of the season was Mikaël Silvestre, missing since September after a cruciate ligament injury. "It's been a long time but it's good to be back and good to be back with a win," said the Frenchman, who featured at left-back in a United defence which managed a sixth clean sheet in ten games in the competition, following Daniele De Rossi's first-half penalty miss. "If he'd scored that would have made it hard," admitted Silvestre. "It's another win and another clean sheet so we did well, especially because we had some changes in the team – Gerard Piqué and myself were in the back four, so it's good."