Steven Davis will join forces with Jonny Evans tomorrow night – but the Rangers star can’t wait to go head-to-head with the Manchester United youngster on Champions League duty this month.

The pair are part of the Northern Ireland squad which will kick off their 2012 Euro-pean Championship qualifying campaign against Slovenia in Maribor alongside Rangers duo Kyle Lafferty and Andrew Little.

Friends will become foes on September 14, however, when the Light Blues travel to Old Trafford in the Champions League and the SPFA Player of the Year is looking forward to squaring up against his international team-mate.

Davis has watched Evans progress through the United ranks to become a regular for club and country and is fully expecting some light-hearted exchanges with the defender in the build-up to their European encounter.

He said: “It has been great to meet up with the international squad again this week and especally to see Jonny – and it was no surprise that the banter has been flying about ahead of our clubs meeting in Europe.

“He has obviously established himself down there now and is doing really well. It is nice to come up against one of your fellow countrymen. He is a good lad. The Northern Ireland squad are all like that, everyone gets on well so it will be nice to test ourselves against him.”

The glamour clash with Sir Alex Ferguson’s Red Devils is the standout fixture for the Scottish champions as they look to make an impact on the European scene.

In a tough section that also includes Spanish giants Valencia and Turkish title holders Bursaspor, remaining in European football’s top competition beyond Christmas would be a terrific achievement for Walter Smith’s side.

The double-header with Valencia and the home tie with Bursaspor is likely to shape Gers’ campaign, but it’s the trip to Old Trafford that catches the imagination of Davis.

He said: “It is a game for everyone to look forward to. It will be a great atmosphere over the two games and it is one the players are really looking forward to.

“I was delighted to see that name come out.

“It will be an exciting tie. It will be billed as the Battle of Britain, but it will give us a chance to go down and hopefully show what we can do in England and hopefully get a couple of decent results.

“It is going to be very difficult. We will be underdogs in most of the games we will play in the Champions League, but we are there to test ourselves and there in no bigger occasion than playing Man United.”

Rangers were on the end of a 3-0 defeat on their last journey to the Theatre of Dreams and Davis admits he will be out to put right his own Old Trafford nightmare.

The former Aston Villa and Fulham star has yet to taste victory at the famous ground and hopes the Gers are able to rise to the challenge in just under a fortnight.

“My record there is not very good,” Davis said. “I have never won there so it would be nice to change that.”

He went on: “We are not underestimating the task it will be to get a result there.

“Man United get to the final stages of the Champions League every season so we know we will be up against it.

“It is a real glamour tie. The players are looking forward to going down there and giving it their all and hopefully getting a result.”

Rangers toiled in the Champions League last season as they secured just two points from their six fixtures against Sevilla, Stuttgart and Unirea Urziceni.

Despite an impressive opening-night draw in the Mercedes-Benz Arena, thumping defeats at the hands of the Spaniards and the little-known Urziceni saw the Gers finish bottom of the group and miss out on a consolation place in the Europa League.

The task ahead of them this time around appears even more daunting, but Davis is confident the champions can put on an improved showing.

“We will be underdogs going into the competition but we really want to give a better account of ourselves than we did last season,” he told Blues News.

“It was disappointing, so hopefully we can improve on that and maybe sneak through

“Last year it looked as if we had a good chance of going through, especially after the good result against Stuttgart.

“We found last year that the Champions League can punish you for your mistakes and that was a big lesson for us. Hopefully we can learn from that.

“On paper, this year it looks a stronger group and we are going to have to have some good home results if we are to have any real chance of going through.”