Community Shield

I almost missed the fact that Manchester United and Chelsea are playing one another in the Community Shield this Sunday! See, sometimes I get caught up in going to the same websites over and over again, and I'll neglect to check in with the obvious…Manchester United's own site. I'll often check the satellite internet news feeds and the television station websites but if I let more than a couple of days pass checking on a particular site, I'll miss out on something. This is the first time I've heard about it. Thanks to the internet, I'm not going to miss this game!

Rio Ferdinand will be filling in as skipper while Gary Neville is out, he's still out with a groin injury. In fact, the list of defense line injuries is growing and Sir Alex Ferguson is keeping an eye on how to fill in the gaps. Wes Brown is out with a thigh injury, Nemanja Vidic hurt his calf, and Edwin van der Sar did something to one of his hands.

Sir Alex spoke with the press on Friday and said, "Gary has done a bit of training and he is coming along fine, and I expect Wes to be fit for the Birmingham match.

"Vidic has pulled his calf and is another week or two away, while Edwin's injury is a bad one. He's out for 8-10 weeks, of course. So my first selection dilemma for Sunday is in goal. It is not an easy one for me.

"If you look at the games Ben and Tomasz have played, Tomasz has actually had more to do and more saves to make as he did on Wednesday [against Valencia]. So it's a little bit of a dilemma and I'll speak to them both about it."

In the past, Sir Alex has thought of the Community Shield Friendly match as a gauge in judging how fit the players are but with all of the time they've recently spent on the road, he's already got a good idea of their individual levels.

"All the players are at a good level fitness-wise and everyone should be able to give a good account of themselves. And when you play Chelsea, pride comes into it and the players want to win."