Manchester United defender, Nemanja Vidic, says the club have what it takes to turn their tie against Bayern Munich on its head.

United are currently trailing 2-1 in the tie and have been rocked by the news that their top scorer and best player, Wayne Rooney, will be out of action for about a month after spraining his ankle in Germany.

However, Vidic says there is a lot more togetherness in the team than many give the side credit for. He believes that ultimately it will be this team spirit, which helps get the side through some tough matches ahead.

He said: “We showed this season, we play as a team. It is not just about one man. Definitely Wayne Rooney has had a great season. He is unbelievable, one of the best in the world. But sometimes big players are missing, and others need to be ready.”

“Dimitar had a great game against Bolton on Saturday. He is a great footballer. He scored twice himself and can set up goals for other players as well. We have a good squad. We just need to believe in ourselves and believe in each other.”

“We had all night to think about what went wrong. It was not a great game for us. We should play better and we will need to play better against Chelsea. Sometimes when you lose a game and play badly you wake up and realise you need to improve.”

“I am not concerned. I was disappointed. But 2-1 is not that bad a result bearing in mind we still have a game at home and I expect us to be stronger.”

The scale of the task immediately in front of United may just be a little too big. It is ridiculous to say that the side can play with the same charisma and influence when Rooney isn’t in the side.

If this was the case, then Rooney would be able to sit on the bench for United a lot more often. This would have meant that he didn’t have to play in Germany and get injured.

They will miss him but the point is whether they can hang on by the skin of their teeth to a point where Chelsea do not sneak ahead of them and Bayern do not nip past them in the Champions League.

England will be happy because it means Rooney will get a nice one month break before the World Cup. This equipped with the fact Chelsea’s England players don’t have to play extra Champions League games could work well for the team.

However, the battle in the mind of many English fans will all be about United and Chelsea this weekend. Whoever wins this game will probably go onto win the title if all the other results go as intended.

Italian Serie A team Juventus fired manager Claudio Ranieri with only two games to go in the season and replaced him with former player Ciro Ferrara. Juventus is only a point in front of fourth-place Fiorentina and could still miss out on the automatic Champions League berth for next year after going winless in their last seven league games.

Ranieri took over from Didier Deschamps in 2007 when the Turin team was promoted back to Serie A after being demoted to the second division for match-fixing. Club chief executive Jean Claude Blanc said Ferrara’s appointment is for the last two games of the year.

“The next two games are our future,” Blanc said at a news conference. “It is not our style, but we cannot miss out on Europe. We wanted to shock the players so they’d take the right path with the right man at the right moment.”

Ferrara was a famous centre-back for Juventus, and is also an assistant to Italian coach and ex-Juventus manager Marcello Lippi, but this will be his first time managing a club on his own.

Juventus finished in third place last season and beat Spanish side Real Madrid home and away in the Champions League, but their winless streak has shown no signs of ending. They are currently three points behind second-placed AC Milan.

Over in England, Manchester United defender Nemanja Vidic said he was surprised to be named the club’s player of the year by his team mates and the club’s fans. The 27-year-old Serbian international won both awards for his fine play alongside Rio Ferdinand in the centre of United’s defence this season.

Vidic, who moved to United from Spartak Moscow three years ago, has been an important figure in Manchester’s Premier League triumph and their run to the Champions League final.

“It’s a great night for me,” he said on Manchester United TV. “It has been a really good year. I am surprised I got it but I have really enjoyed it.”

Vidic also chipped in with a few goals this year and scored the opening goal in United’s 2-0 second-round second-leg win over Inter Milan in the Champions League.

“To be honest I don’t have so many individual awards,” Vidic added. “That’s why I am a bit confused and my speech is not the best. Next time my speech will be a bit better.”

Meanwhile, United keeper Ben Foster will be out of action for the next nine weeks after undergoing surgery to repair a ruptured ligament in his thumb. This means he will certainly miss the Champion League Final against Barcelona in Rome on May 27.

The 26-year-old will also miss the last match of the season against Hull City, along with England’s World Cup qualifiers against Kazakhstan, and Andorra on June 6th and 10th.

Dutch goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar was scheduled to start against Barcelona on May 27 anyway, but Foster hoped to be on the bench for the cup final.

United manager Sir Alex Ferguson stated: “It is big blow for Ben as not only will he miss the Champions League final but also England’s summer internationals. Ben has tried to continue the season with this injury but it got so critical that an operation was the only way forward.”

Foster has been injury prone at United since being loaned out twice to Watford. He has also had major knee surgery and has only appeared in nine games for United this season. His biggest match was in the penalty shoot-out win against Tottenham Hotspur in the Carling Cup final.

Wes Brown has suffered yet another injury set back and will miss the remainder of the season after making a lot of progress in the last couple of weeks. The right back picked up a recent knock in training and will take no further part in Manchester United’s Premier League or European campaigns.

Brown broke into the first team last season in place of the injured Gary Neville. However, in a bitter twist of irony, Brown last his starting birth this season to Brazilian right back, Rafael Da Silva, and has not got it back since, with John O’Shea regularly stepping in to play in the position.

Brown’s first team performances at Old Trafford last season earnt him regular call ups to the England international squad and the injuries he has endured this season look to have severely damaged his career for the future.

Speaking today, Sir Alex Ferguson said: “Wes had a little setback during the week. It is not major but the fact the season is coming to an end makes it difficult for him. We have Gary back fit so we are not too bad but it is disappointing for Wes.”

Ferguson also made a big point last season out of the fact that Brown was taking a long time to sign a new contract at Old Trafford and needed to show a lot of faith to his club for giving him ample opportunities to make significant strides in his career.

There is no doubt that the club still rate him and will want him to stay in the squad for next season. The setback could have a beneficial tint for Brown because it now allows him to focus all of his energy and efforts into getting ready for United’s next campaign and making sure that he is the person in the starting team when next season comes round.

This news is unlikely to lead to doom and gloom on Old Trafford, they are not likely to miss him for the simple fact that he hasn’t played a lot at all this season. The last time he turned out in a United shirt was in October when he made two substitute appearances.

For Brown his options are fairly simple now. He obviously has all of the attributes to make himself a first team regular and forge a formidable defence with Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic and Patrice Evra. He also has big England aspirations. All he needs to do is get his head down and make sure he works his socks off in the gym and when he is back in training.

Ferguson is not the sort of manager to forget significant contributions as his decision to start O’Shea in the Champions League final this season shows. What this means is that if he can get himself fit and prove to the manager he has not lost an ounce of talent or ability then sooner or later he will get his chance and his place back and it is up to Brown to take it.

When two English sides face each other in any competition other than the Premier League it always brings up elements of the game that we all love. The aggression, the passion, the desire and the entertainment, these are all virtues that the Champions League quarter-final between Manchester United and Arsenal on Wednesday promises to deliver.

United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, clearly wants the Champions League more than anything else, despite having won the competition twice already. Having just been knocked out of the FA Cup by Everton, United will have a renewed fire to go out and dominate this tie from the first minute to the 180th.

Arsenal go into this tie with massive injury problems. Both Mikael Silvestre and William Gallas are out and the combination of Emanuel Adebayor and Robin Van Persie up front are unlikely to play together. This no doubt will satisfy United fans but it places an incredible pressure on the rest of the Arsenal squad in what will be a huge atmosphere.

The current European Champions have only kept one clean sheet in their last seven games and are under huge pressure. United are going through a rough patch, of that there is no question. They have started to play better football but the Premier League game against Tottenham on Saturday showed they are still vulnerable in areas.

They benefit from the defensive pairing of Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand, both likely to start the game, who are clearly the best partnership that Sir Alex can offer forward.

The other massive blow to Arsenal is the fact that Andrey Arshavin will be cup-tied, this is a player just starting to justify why Arsene Wenger paid £17 million for his services, he would also have been one of the first names to go down on the team sheet.

It is looking like Arsenal will have to field a much more make shift team than United, placing pressure on their skipper, Cesc Fabregas. Regardless of who Arsene Wenger picks to play in the tie, Arsenal have to consolidate and keep United out. If the big occasion gets to one or two of the less experienced Arsenal players then United could effectively kill off the tie in the first leg.

United will be buoyed by the win they gained over Porto in Portugal, becoming the first English team to win there. This is accompanied by the fact that effectively their reserve side kept out the attack of Everton in the FA Cup semi-final, until eventually being defeated by a penalty shoot-out.

This match is very difficult to call. All of the odds are stacked firmly in Manchester United’s favour but Arsene Wenger is not a stupid man and if he gets his team and tactics right it could be a lot more difficult for United to get through.
One thing is for sure though, it will be one hell of a game.

There’s a time and place to field an inexperienced, young team during a football season, but it’ not a good idea to do in an FA Cup semifinal. But it seems Alex Ferguson hasn’t learned that yet and paid the ultimate price by getting knocked out of the Cup 4-2 on penalties by a less than mediocre Everton side at Wembley today (April 19th).

It serves Ferguson right for being so arrogant and stupid in his selection and substitutions, but it isn’t right for the team’s fans who spend their hard-earned money following the team all year in, year out. I have no problem with the starting 11 that United fielded as I think they have a lot of depth and the players picked were capable enough of handling Everton. But there’s no excuse for not having a back up plan, and not even dressing Rooney, Ronaldo, Carrick, and Giggs is just plain idiotic to me. You never know what’s going to happen during the course of a match. It could be a penalty, a red, card, or injuries, etc. and you have to back up the youngsters with some experience just in case they aren’t up to the task.

And don’t come back by telling me that Ferguson has won so many trophies during his career, so what? If he knew his team and used some common sense he might have won a lot more. Why go through all of the qualifying FA Cup rounds (and complaining about the fixture list as usual) and then throw it away in the semi final. My God, Ferguson, if you’re going to do that you might as well throw it away in the first round, not the second last. It’s like scaling Mount Everest and then deciding to pack it in when you’re 100 feet from the peak. By leaving Danny Welbeck on the pitch and taking off Macheda and Park, baffles my mind.

Ferguson’s penalty kick selection was just as bad as his substitutions. Granted, Vidic scored, but why was he taking a penalty ahead of Scholes and Tevez? As for Ferdinand and Berbatov having their shots saved, what did he expect? These are two of the laziest players in the history of football. Mind you, I can understand why Ferguson let Ferdinand take a penalty. He should know where the net is by now because that’s all he does for 90 minutes, passes it back to his goalie from wherever he is on the pitch. In fact, if captain Ferdinand put as much effort into his penalty as he did when kicking the ball into the stands after missing it, he might be given the benefit of the doubt.

You’d think that Ferguson would know his players by now and who should play in what situations. I’m sure there are millions of 12-year-old kids around the world who could have done a better job of managing United today. The last thing you want to do is go into the remaining few games of the season and the Champions League with no momentum, not when they’re both up for grabs. And by the way, Everton don’t really have any reason to celebrate the win either. While their manager David Moyes may not have cocked everything up, they still played poorly in a rubbish match, and the same type of performance will see them get thumped by Chelsea on May 30th in the Wembley final.