I don't want Hull City to get a free pass to another
season of Premier League football on Sunday. I don't want them to
have an unfair advantage over Alan Shearer's Newcastle,
Middlesbrough and Sunderland when relegation frenzy takes hold at
4pm.
I don't want the other three teams to stare at the final table
with bitterness in their hearts, thinking Hull had it easy because
they were playing a side that didn't care.
That's why I hope Sir Alex Ferguson picks a weakened Manchester
United side at the KC Stadium. That's why I hope he leaves out
Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Ryan Giggs for the crunch game
against Phil Brown's strugglers.
Because a team of United fringe players, a team of hungry kids
and reserves with a point to prove, is the best chance
Middlesbrough, Newcastle and Sunderland have got.
I'd like to see Nani out on the wing, dying to prove a point to
Fergie after being left on the sidelines for so much of this
season. I'd like to see Danny Welbeck up front, trying to live up
to the assertion Ferguson made on Sunday that he'd force his way
into Fabio Capello's World Cup squad next season. And I'd like to
see Federico Macheda alongside him, bursting to recreate the glory
of the crucial winners he scored against Aston Villa and
Sunderland.
Partly, it's because I want United to have the best chance of
beating Barcelona in Rome three days later. For that to happen,
Ronaldo and Rooney have to be as fresh as possible and not carrying
any knocks.
But partly it's because that for a match like Sunday, when
United have nothing to play for but pride, Welbeck, Macheda and
Gibson represent the best they have to offer. Even if Ferguson
played Ronaldo in Hull, do you really think the World Footballer of
the Year's heart would be in it knowing he was facing one of the
biggest matches of his life so soon afterwards? Of course it
wouldn't. No chance.
The title's won. He wouldn't have any appetite for getting
kicked up in the air by Andy Dawson every five minutes. But Gibson
will be up for it. He'll be up for every challenge. So will
Welbeck. It'll mean everything to them.
Yes, I understand what Neil Warnock said on the radio on Monday
night when he recalled looking up at a television screen on the
final day of the 2006-07 season and seeing the team Ferguson had
picked to play West Ham. He said it knocked the stuffing out of
him.
Ferguson rested Ronaldo, Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic because
United were playing in the FA Cup Final the following week. United
lost. Sheffield United went down. For Warnock, it was a bitter,
bitter pill to swallow.
The dynamic this time is slightly different. Ferguson has the
Champions League Final to think of, a match that is one of the most
important in his entire career, an opportunity that comes along
only rarely even for a manager of his calibre and a club of
United's size and tradition.
He has a duty to his club to rest established stars that is far
clearer than when he chose to omit players ahead of an FA Cup Final
that was seven days away. Still, the team he put out that May day
against West Ham two years ago went like this: Edwin van der Sar,
Wes Brown, John O'Shea, Patrice Evra (Ryan Giggs, 58), Gabriel
Heinze, Darren Fletcher, Kieran Richardson, Michael Carrick (Paul
Scholes, 58), Alan Smith (Cristiano Ronaldo, 58), Wayne Rooney, Ole
Gunnar Solskjaer.
Not a bad side, all things considered. That's the point: the key
wasn't in the line-up. It was in the attitude. "West Ham couldn't
have come to Old Trafford on a better day," Ferguson said
afterwards. "We had already won the league title and the edge was
off our game."
The same thing will apply on Sunday. It will be about attitude,
not reputation. And that's why Gibson, Macheda, Welbeck and Ji-Sung
Park might just turn into Hull City's worst nightmare.
Well, I reckon the MUFC reserves will be going all out to prove
apoint against Hull. This will surely take the Tigers by
surprise.
