Leeds United chairman Ken Bates hailed the quality of the Red Devils reserves ahead of Leeds’ Carling Cup clash with Manchester United.
“Manchester United have scored 16 goals in their last three games, so Fergie must be terrified at the mere thought of coming here to Leeds!
“Of course we know that Fergie is going to mix and match his side but it doesn’t matter if they bring their reserve team because if they played their entire reserve team in the Premier League they would still finish runners up.” — Ken Bates
Perhaps Bates went a bit over the top, but he got his point across. Sir Alex Ferguson’s side is expected to include the likes of Michael Owen, Michael Carrick, Dimitar Berbatov, Ryan Giggs, and Park Ji-Sung. Not a bad side to feature in the Carling Cup.
Owen, Carrick, Berbatov, Giggs, and Park are finding it hard to break into United’s starting XI. A good performance at Leeds would go a long way to force Sir Alex to make tough decisions when it comes to selecting his starting lineups in the Premier League.
In other news, Michael Carrick has tipped Paul Pogba for stardom. Pogba, who is expected to play against Leeds, has been impressing on the reserves for the last two seasons.
“Paul is a huge talent. He has trained with us a number of times, so we have seen quite a lot of him and he looks very promising.
“If he goes about things in the right way and gets a little bit of luck at the right time, he is going to have a bright future.” — Michael Carrick
Other youngsters that are included in Sir Alex Ferguson’s side are Tom Thorpe, Ezekiel Fryers, Larnell Cole and Michael Keane. Surely it is a big opportunity for the youngsters to prove their worth to the manager, but they must not get discouraged if they are not selected. You will get your chance if you are playing for Sir Alex Ferguson, so be ready.
With regards to United’s match-up against Leeds, Carrick added the following:
“We are well aware what Leeds means, because of the fans and the rivalry over the years. The FA Cup game was a bad day for us so I am sure the manager will pick a strong team.
“Rotation has been part of it since I have been here. People get carried away sometimes when you miss a game or two but the manager sees the bigger picture. As a player, you just have to trust him.
“It is frustrating at times but it is proven at the end of the season if you have a trophy. That is the way it is. Whoever comes in is not going to weaken the team in any way. They just offer something different.
“They are great options for the manager to have.”
Lastly, it turns out that Javier Hernandez’s injury scare was nothing more than a scare. Great news for United supporters. Hernandez’s agent confirmed that the Mexican striker does not have the originally feared ligament damage.
“[The injury is] nothing, it’s just a bump, nothing more. I expect him to be training without incident on Wednesday. It looked like [his absence] was longer, they were looking for a fracture, that’s why they ran those tests on him.” — Eduardo Hernandez
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