Eight changes for United in FA Cup tie

Alex Ferguson made eight changes to his starting line-up as Manchester United look to make it second time lucky in their FA Cup fifth round replay with Reading.

Only Edwin van der Sar, Rio Ferdinand and Wes Brown kept their places from the weekend Premiership win over Fulham as Ferguson kept most of his star men back in readiness for the crucial trip to Liverpool on Saturday.

Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Paul Scholes were named on the bench as insurance against a Reading side which also showed eight changes from the weekend defeat at Middlesbrough.

Howard Webb, the man in charge of Sunday’s Carling Cup final, was referee for the day and was presumably hoping for a less taxing time than he had in Cardiff.

Reading v Man Utd Reading: Federici, De la Cruz, Gunnarsson, Bikey, Ingimarsson, Shorey, Ki-Hyeon, Sidwell, Oster, Kitson, Doyle.

Subs: Hahnemann, Little, Lita, Hunt, Sodje.

Man Utd: Van der Sar, Silvestre, Brown, Ferdinand, Heinze, Park, O’Shea, Fletcher, Richardson, Saha, Solskjaer.

Subs: Kuszczak, Ronaldo, Rooney, Smith, Scholes.

Referee: H Webb (S Yorkshire)