Sir Alex Ferguson has admitted his confusion at Manchester United’s defensive issues after his side had to come from behind to beat Braga 3-2 in the Champions League on Tuesday.
The Portuguese club were ahead after only 80 seconds, and made it two after 20 minutes as United threatened to implode with a makeshift defence which included Michael Carrick at centre-back.
Despite the Old Trafford side coming back strongly to win the game and make it nine points from three games in Group H, Sir Alex says he is unsure of how to rectify the current defensive concerns.
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When reminded that Silva is a severe doubt for the game thanks to an injury picked up on international duty, the midfielder replied: "He is? Well, that's a small relief but, on the other hand, they have a lot of players who can replace him.
"With guys like Aguero and Toure they will always bring world-class players onto the pitch.
"Toure is a very strong midfielder. His physique is outstanding and that's going to put us in a difficult position. I think I've played against him when I was at Sevilla and he played for Barcelona but he has become even better since joining City.
"It's going to be a tough couple of weeks for us and it starts against City on Wednesday", Poulsen continued.
"Against Real Madrid we didn't play well. We had a lot of problems with the amount of pressure they put on our defence so we couldn't play our own game. Against Borussia Dortmund it was a lot better so we have to focus on that.
"If we manage to play our own way, we can hurt a team like Manchester City."
He may be his club's most experienced player but Poulsen, like Ajax as a whole, has never faced City before.
"No, I don't think so," he confirmed, "but I don't worry about which teams I’ve played against. I focus on my next opponent and afterwards I let it go.
"But I do know that their current team is world class, just like the other teams in our group. I hope we can do better against City then we did against the other teams, because we really need three points."