Alex Ferguson made a number of key changes in Wednesday’s win over West Ham – most notably the inclusion of Tevez up front for Rooney and Kuszczak in goal for Van der Sar. The United boss offered some insight into these decisions on Thursday, hinting that further rotation would be on the cards….
On the goalkeeping situation, it would appear that Van der Sar will suffer increased rest and rotation this season, with Ferguson stating that both Kuszczak and Foster will get further opportunities.
“They will all get their minutes on the clock,” remarked Ferguson. He also made it clear that at 38, Van der Sar can no longer be expected to turn out for every game:
“At that age, we don’t need him to play every game because we have two very capable goalkeepers in Tomasz and Ben”.
While Van der Sar is likely to earn a recall against Hull this weekend, it’s clear that his place in the side, even in the Premiership could now be at risk more often, giving his fantasy owners a very unwelcome uncertainty each gameweek. Although the Dutch keeper offers a cheap method of gaining United clean sheets each week, it looks as though it might be necessary to cough up for Evra or Ferdinand if you’re looking for a higher level of certainty from your United defensive points.
Moving on to Tevez and here Ferguson’s comments are a little more cryptic but perhaps no less revealing.
Ferguson started with Tevez against his former club, relegating Rooney to the bench. In his programme notes for the game he remarked on the difficulty he faced finding a place the United lineup with the attacking resources at his disposal. However, while there was a presumption that Ferguson would rotate Ronaldo, Rooney, Berbatov and Tevez – the United boss appears to take Ronaldo out of the equation in this quote…
“It’s just that three players won’t fit into two positions, and while I am tempted to accommodate all three star forwards, my job is to balance the team.”
He’s clearly talking about Berbatov, Rooney and Tevez here, so presumably, he’s not factoring Ronaldo in when it comes to selecting Tevez. So, despite some fears going into the West Ham game that Roanldo was at risk as a result of a start for Tevez, it seems that the rotation with the striker will only affect Rooney and Berbatov. Ferguson’s experiment with Rooney in a wide position looks well and truly over then, while Ronaldo could well be that little bit more secure.