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Tired Man U will play reserves League-leader plans to rest starters against Wednesday
Posted: Friday April 16, 1999 11:37 AM
LONDON (AP) -- No disrespect to Sheffield Wednesday. But Manchester United likely will field several of its backup players in Saturday's Premier League game at Old Trafford. Wednesday's incident-packed FA Cup semifinal victory over Arsenal has left Alex Ferguson with a squad of tired and injured stars. And the Champions Cup semifinal second leg against Juventus in Turin, with the two teams tied 1-1, is just a few days away. In between, there's just a little matter of staying top of the Premier League and Ferguson will have to call on his reserves against Wednesday. Some reserves. Andy Cole and Dennis Irwin are likely to be fit again for Saturday's game and Ferguson can call on teenage defender Wes Brown, one of United's finds of the season. Dwight Yorke, Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes all went on as substitutes against Arsenal and Giggs scored a memorable solo winner in a 2-1 semifinal victory which sets up a Cup Final matchup with Newcastle at Wembley May 22. First, there is Sheffield Wednesday to deal with. "I'll now have to do a lot of thinking about my team for Saturday," said Ferguson as match-winner Giggs and penalty-saver Peter Schmeichel joined various others on the treatment table on Thursday. The veteran manager likely will rest Giggs, Schmeichel and several others involved in the titanic struggle with Arsenal so that they are fresh for another major confrontation with Juventus on Wednesday. Raimond van der Gouw could step in for groin injury victim Schmeichel although Giggs' natural replacement, Jesper Blomqvist, limped off with a foot injury at Villa Park. If Irwin returns, that might mean fullback Philip Neville moving up to play wide on the left. One bonus for Ferguson is that, if he decides to rest Wednesday's strike partners Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Teddy Sheringham, he could recall Yorke and Cole, who have scored 47 goals this season. United is a point ahead of defending champion Arsenal and third place Chelsea with a game in hand on both. If Ferguson's team fails to beat Sheffield Wednesday, Chelsea could go take the league lead by beating Leicester at home on Sunday and Arsenal is ready to pounce when it hosts Wimbledon on Monday. Fourth place Leeds, which is six points behind, hopes to stay in contention by winning at relegation-threatened Charlton on Saturday. Down at the bottom, Nottingham Forest could get relegated four games early if it loses at home to Tottenham and Charlton and second from last Blackburn manage to win. Blackburn goes to next-to-last Southampton. Fourth-from-last Everton, which has not been relegated since 1954, has a tough game at FA Cup finalist Newcastle and is only three points above the relegation zone while Coventry, six points clear, hosts Middlesbrough. Liverpool faces up to a home game against Aston Villa without Michael Owen, who has been ruled out for the rest of the season with a hamstring injury. But Robbie Fowler, who scored three times in Liverpool's 4-2 win at Villa Park in November, will be in action. He still has three games before he starts a six-game ban for two misconduct offenses. Saturday's other game is sixth-place West Ham vs. Derby, which is eighth. Division One leader Sunderland is already sure of promotion and visits Barnsley on Friday so that the race is on for the second place which guarantees a rise to the top flight. Bradford and Ipswich both have 80 points with Bradford ahead 74-63 on goals scored. On Saturday, Bradford hosts neighbor Huddersfield while Ipswich goes to Bolton, which is battling for a place in the promotion playoffs along with Birmingham, Wolves and Watford. Scottish Premier League leader Rangers holds a six-point lead over defending titlist Celtic with six games to go and visits seventh-place Dundee. Celtic dares not slip up at home to fifth-place Motherwell.
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