Ferguson: Young guns will not be hounded

ALEX FERGUSON has thrown a cloak of protection around his young players, insisting they will not be “hounded out” of Manchester United despite the Champions League catastrophe in midweek.

A major review is already under way at Old Trafford as they adapt to a post-Christmas expedition into the Europa League in the wake of Wednesday’s 2-1 defeat in Basel that could cost the club €23m.

Given United bounced back from a similarly disastrous situation, compounded by significant off-field turbulence, including the loss of main sponsor Vodafone, in 2005 by registering three straight Premier League title triumphs and enjoying one of their most prolific spells in Europe, few are willing to write Ferguson off just yet. However, former skipper Roy Keane has raised a familiar topic, namely the over-inflated reputations of young players. Phil Jones, Chris Smalling, Nani, Ashley Young and David de Gea were all in Ferguson’s midweek starting line-up, with Jonny Evans, Danny Welbeck and Federico Macheda introduced later on, all to no avail.

Yet, rather than allow such a negative experience to crush them, Ferguson insists he retains total trust in their talent and expects them to be the bedrock of a new United, just as Cristiano Ronaldo led the last one out of the mire.

“We’ve experienced this many times over the years, going back to when [Ryan] Giggs and the other young lads came in to the side,” he said.

“They came in for criticism, particularly against Aston Villa [in 1995]..

“It has happened more recently with Wes Brown, John O’Shea and Darren Fletcher.

“They have all become the foundation of the club and that’s what will happen with these young players. They have achieved many great things so far. Chris Smalling, Phil Jones and Danny Welbeck have played for their country.

“They had a nasty experience on Wednesday but they have the trust of myself and my coaches. They will not be hounded because of one bad performance. Time will prove us right.”

As expected, Ferguson confirmed the unhappy postscript to Wednesday was the loss of skipper Nemanja Vidic for the remainder of the season after scans revealed the Serbian ruptured cruciate knee ligaments during a first-half tangle with Marco Streller.

“Nemanja is out for the season,” confirmed Ferguson.

“It is bad news. He sees the specialist on Monday to map out the progress of when he has the operation. It won’t be immediate because we have to let the swelling come down. It is a bit of a blow.”

If there is a silver lining to such a hefty dark cloud it is that Jones may now get a chance to occupy his favourite position in central defence.

Smalling and Evans may also be selected, particularly as Rio Ferdinand, who has played in the last two games, tends to be spared the huge fixture demands United’s presence in the Europa League has only increased.

It is a measure of how quickly the Red Devils’ season has disintegrated that a fortnight ago, ahead of the game with Newcastle, they were making optimistic noises about closing the gap on Manchester City and expecting to advance in both the Carling Cup and Champions League.

The latter two competitions have disappeared completely and now three points are demanded against Wolves today just to bring some stability back to a campaign that in its early weeks included that 8-2 annihilation of Arsenal.

Yet the warning signs started flashing not long afterwards, even if it was the 6-1 home defeat to Manchester City that made everyone start to notice.

Welbeck insists Manchester United cannot afford to dwell on this week’s Champions League catastrophe.

As he prepares to face Wolves, Welbeck feels it would be counter-productive to spend too much time wondering what went wrong.

“Manchester United are expected to qualify and we haven’t,” he said.

“It’s tough but we don’t want to dwell on it.

“You have to turn the situation into a positive. We have to move forward and the best way to do that is to learn from it and try and get better as a team.”