Ferguson to field weakened side as thoughts turn to Marseilles

The Football Association is prepared to accept Sir Alex Ferguson fielding a weakened side in Manchester United's fifth-round FA Cup tie with Crawley Town today, following signs that the manager is ready to rest a large number of players for next Wednesday's Champions League tie in Marseilles.

The 18-year-old midfielder Ryan Tunnicliffe may get a chance in a youthful United side at Old Trafford, with Joshua King, Paul Pogba and the prodigiously talented Ravel Morrison among others who may get some match time. Ferguson is evidently unperturbed by the prospect of Crawley causing the kind of embarrassment Burton Albion did at the Pirelli Stadium five years ago, before United swamped them 5-0 in the replay.

King, the Norwegian striker recalled from loan at Preston when Ferguson's son Darren was sacked in December, did not feature in the 1-0 FA Youth Cup win over Newcastle this week, and may have been rested for this evening.

The Premier League has fined both Wolverhampton and Blackpool £25,000 for fielding weakened sides against United and Aston Villa respectively, though the FA seems to accept that clubs must be free to deploy whosoever they choose.

Ferguson, who has as expected handed Ryan Giggs a further one-year contract extension, is also likely to introduce Gabriel Obertan and Bebe against the Conference side, and Javier Hernandez may get the opportunity to prove that he can do as much in a starting XI as from the bench.

Ferguson reflected yesterday on Nani, a player far more likely to feature in Stade Vélodrome in four days' time than this evening, admitting that he and the 24-year-old did have to sit down to discuss his future two seasons ago, when by April he had been substituted in each of six Premier League starts and never made it beyond 70 minutes.

"He wasn't close to leaving because he'd have had to get by me!" Ferguson said of the Portuguese midfielder. "Of course we sat down and talked, of course we did. You do that with all your players." But just as Cristiano Ronaldo came through in his fourth season, so Nani is doing and Ferguson did not challenge a suggestion that he is elevating himself to a force in world football. "He's started to be mature and consistent," said Ferguson of arguably United's best player in the 2-1 win over Manchester City.

"That gives him a great chance to get to the level that you're talking about. I would think he has a good chance of doing that. Ronaldo was exceptional, a once-in-a-lifetime player. But it did take him time to settle and develop into the English game. I think Nani has done it a bit quicker actually in the sense of understanding the game in England. Cristiano was younger when he came here, so there's a difference that way. But they've shown their development signs very early."

Though Hernandez has scored 11 times in his first United season, Ferguson still concedes that he is a better substitute at present as he gets used to the sheer pace of the English game. Rio Ferdinand and Jonny Evans continue to miss out through injury today and while Park Ji-sung's hamstring problem will sideline him until March, the initial prognosis on a knock Michael Owen picked up in training is not as grave as was initially thought.

"Michael picked up a little knock in training this week, which was disappointing because I was keen to play him [against Crawley]," said Ferguson. "We could risk him but there's no point. He should be OK for Wednesday."