Sir Alex Ferguson does not intend to rest his big guns for Valencia's Champions League visit to Old Trafford today even though they have qualified for last 16 phase
Sir Alex Ferguson does not intend to rest his big guns for Valencia's Champions League visit to Old Trafford today even though they have qualified for last 16 phase.
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| Manchester United's Michael Owen (left) trains with midfielder Park Ji-Sung in Manchester yesterday. pic/AFP |
Although the match is effectivey a dead rubber, Ferguson wants to make sure United to finish top of the group so they avoid the likes of Real Madrid and Barcelona until the latter stages of the competition.
"We will be playing a strong side because we want to top the group," said Ferguson. "Real Madrid are top of their group, Barcelona are top, Bayern (Munich) are top.
"It's not that you're afraid of them but you want to keep them out of the road until later.
"Valencia will want to be top of the group too, so it should be an interesting game. They changed their system for the first time I can remember when they played Villarreal a few weeks ago.
"They went five at the back, which is unusual for them. They've always had a back four with one sitting in front."
United lost their position at the top of the Premier League after their scheduled game away to Blackpool on Saturday was postponded due to a frozen pitch.
"Maybe in seasons gone by you'd look at the fixture list and say, 'Right, we should get nine points out of those three games and six out of those two'; and then you'd go into the games against Chelsea, Liverpool or Arsenal wanting to win, but perhaps focusing more on not losing," said Wes Brown.
