Federico Macheda has had plenty of tongues wagging recently, with devout followers of our younger players tipping him for big things. Just last week he scored a hattrick against Newcastle Reserves to salvage a point for us.

With Dimitar Berbatov injured and Wayne Rooney suspended for this afternoon’s game against Aston Villa, Sir Alex Ferguson has claimed we could get a look at our young striker.

“Berbatov and Rooney missing is a bad blow to us, but it’s there and there’s nothing we can do about it,” said Ferguson. “I’ve got options of course. I could play Ronaldo through the middle, I could play Welbeck, I could play Macheda or I could play Giggs – the great thing is the flexibility of players, Giggs, Ronaldo, those types. The boy Macheda is developing at a great rate of speed now, his performances for the reserves have been very good, he’s a natural finisher and he’ll definitely be on the bench at least with Welbeck.”