Ahead of International friendlies, Sir Alex Ferguson has taken the opportunity to call them pointless again.

“I am all in favour of the competitions. The players should play in the major competitions; the European Championship, the World Cup,” Ferguson said. “But friendlies are a waste of time as far as I am concerned. We always say that. It is understandable for the coach. They have the players for a period when they can influence them and can build and shape their team. I can understand that completely. But every time there are friendlies you get six or seven call offs. It is sometimes worthless for the manager to build on that because of the lack of players.”

Usually, I would be inclined to agree, but given the amount of injuries we’ve had at the back, United have benefited from the break from competitive club football this week. Let’s just keep our fingers crossed that our players remain unscathed, particularly Nemanja Vidic, who has surprisingly flown out to Estonia to captain Serbia in their friendly on Tuesday.

Also, rumour has it that Danny Welbeck has been called up to the England squad after not playing for the U-21s in their 2-1 defeat against Iceland tonight. Welbeck has insisted previously claimed he would choose England over Ghana at Senior level but Asamoah Gyan has been working hard on his current Sunderland striker partner. Tom Cleverley came on for the 2nd half and Ben Amos was an unused sub.