During the pre-season I started to wonder how on earth we were going to pick our strongest XI. With all players available, it was looking as though one of Wayne Rooney, Dimitar Berbatov and Carlos Tevez would have to be dropped, whilst just two players from the group of Owen Hargreaves, Paul Scholes, Michael Carrick, Anderson and Darren Fletcher would be able to start. Which two players would get picked from Cristiano Ronaldo, Nani, Ryan Giggs and Park Ji-Sung?

However, with the injuries of Carrick, Hargreaves and Scholes, the team has more or less picked itself. We didn’t really have much of a choice where our starting line-up was concerned.

But Sir Alex Ferguson’s headache will return for our next league game against West Brom.

“We are expecting Michael to be available next week. He is almost back to full training now,” said Ferguson. “Owen is much better and we will pencil him in for the West Brom game without question.”