FA Cup: Fergie was reluctant to turn to Ruud

Alex Ferguson admitted he only reluctantly sent on substitute Ruud van Nistelrooy to rewrite the Manchester United record books in yet another amazing FA Cup comeback.

United had seemingly been knocked out of the cup at the third round stage for the first time in 18 years when van Nistelrooy came on at 2-0 down to Aston Villa after 55 minutes.

However, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer pulled one goal back with 13 minutes left before van Nistelrooy amazingly struck twice in a minute shortly afterwards to pull a 3-2 victory out of nowhere.

That was the seventh consecutive game in which he has scored - creating a club record - and the only sour notes were three pitch invasions by dozens of United fans, which are likely to spark a Football Association investigation.

However, Ferguson preferred to look ahead to a possible fourth-round meeting with his former assistant, Steve McClaren, if Middlesbrough can beat Wimbledon in their postponed third-round tie.

And the United boss admitted that, in an ideal world, he would not have turned to van Nistelrooy as the Dutchman had been suffering from a groin injury.

But with Andy Cole sold, Dwight Yorke not in the squad and Paolo di Canio not yet signed, van Nistelrooy came to the rescue after Ian Taylor's strike and a Phil Neville own goal put United behind in a suicidal two-minute spell.

Ferguson told BBC1: "The second half was a fantastic cup tie and I thought we were extremely unlucky to be down.

"At that point, I had to make the substitution. I didn't want to do it because Ruud has suffered from a groin injury but he came on and the whole game changed."

After being drawn away to either Boro or Wimbledon, Ferguson added: "It's incredible to play against my former assistant, possibly.

"The important thing is just to be in it because with 20 minutes to go, we weren't. That's the great thing about the cup, the uncertainty of it."

Van Nistelrooy, who has scored 10 times in his incredible record-breaking seven-game run, added: "I never thought that we'd concede a goal because they didn't have a chance."