Manchester United eased into the quarter-finals of the Carling Cup on Tuesday night with a 3-0 victory at League Two side Aldershot Town, with manager Sir Alex Ferguson pleased to give his fringe players a run out. Michael Owen, Dimitar Berbatov and Antonio Valencia - with only three Premier League starts between them - were all on target for the Red Devils.
Nemanja Vidic, surprising left out of the mauling at the hands of Manchester City on Sunday, got vital game time as he looks to improve his fitness after a stop-start campaign while Tom Cleverley returned from a six-week lay-off.
Sir Alex said: "They'll always give me nudges. It's difficult picking a team when you've got so many good players.
"We have a fantastic squad. That's why I had to play these players. They need the games, they've not had many first-team games to be honest with you because the consistency of the team has been very good - we've not needed to make any changes.
"But there's Michael Owen - every time he plays, he scores. It's a fantastic record he's got. He's a fantastic professional. Dimitar Berbatov had a fantastic game and scored a tremendous goal from great football.
"So they've all done well; Valencia, Thomas Cleverley back is a good thing for us because the boy's an outstanding footballer. Vida's got another 90 behind him. I think he needed it. Until he got his breathing going, he was feeling it.
"Obviously, we had a difficult day on Sunday simply because we tried to play the history book. The nature of Manchester United is to go and win the game, whether it's eight men, nine men, 10 men or seven men. That's their nature and it's very difficult to change that.''
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