I spent the day with Manchester United fans in Bilbao - this is what I saw and heard

It's approaching 4pm in Bilbao on Tuesday. The sun is shining, and the noise is growing. But the noise has a distinctively cockney twang. In pockets on different streets approaching San Mames, Tottenham fans are cranking up the volume.

As Spurs fans spill out onto the streets from one small bar near the ground, they start to wonder out loud where the United fans are. "Where the f**k are Man United?" is their Bilbao reworking of a song they often sing.

A day before the Europa League final, it did feel like there were more Tottenham fans in the streets and bars of Bilbao, with a suggestion last week that they were expected to outnumber United fans on the money.

But then it's also the case that the two sets of fans do things differently. While Spurs fans were gathering in numbers, smaller groups of Mancunians were seated around tables in different bars across this wonderful city.

There were dads and lads in the main fanzone, trying to kick footballs into boats on the Nervion River and queuing to have their photo taken with the Europa League trophy. There were groups of five or six, bucket hats on, still singing 'For United are going to Bilbao' while knocking back pints in temperatures that will feel familiar after the spring that Manchester has enjoyed.

There was no mass gathering, though - at least not yet. There might have been more substantial sing-alongs on Tuesday night, and the atmosphere will be cranked up a notch on the day of the final.

There is room for 20,000 fans at United's fanzone in Etxebarria Parkea, with a musical line-up that could sell out Heaton Park, but for many of United's regular European away-dayers, such substantial shows of force and numbers are to be avoided. It's also true that Etxebarria Parkea