Quintuple-chasing United give youth its head for Carling Cup

WHEN TOTTENHAM Hotspur won the double of the Football League championship and FA Cup in 1961, it was the first such achievement of the 20th century and seemed a freakish, once-in-a-lifetime feat. Even assuming there had been five trophies then, the notion of any team winning a quintuple would have ranked in the realm of science fiction alongside 50ft spiders from Saturn and ravenous Triffids.

For this season's Manchester United side, however, the dual glory that is central to Spurs' folklore would represent a serious anticlimax. United can boast three domestic doubles; the most recent, in 1999, was turned into a treble by the Champions League. Now they are threatening to go two better.

Having already earned the right to call themselves world club champions, United have an imposing lead in the Premier League, are in the last eight of the FA Cup and returned from Milan with a moral victory after a goalless first leg against Internazionale in the Champions League.

In today's Carling Cup final at Wembley they can claim a second piece of silverware by beating Spurs, the holders, in what, amazingly for two such illustrious names, is the clubs' first final confrontation. United start strong favourites, north London's serial under-achievers having failed to win in their last 17 encounters, but the former League Cup is hardly Alex Ferguson's top priority.

The 38-game Premier League season still defines the true worth of a team and manager – a fact, to use Rafael Benitez's buzzword, that is seared into the Liverpool psyche – and the form of Sir Alex's men has brooked no argument since they returned from the World Club Championship. Their last defeat came in November and it is conceivable they will not lose another game. On successive Saturdays in May they host Manchester City and Arsenal; it is easy to imagine how the sight of either team forming a guard of honour to applaud the new champions on to the pitch would be greeted in the visitors' enclosure.

It is anathema to Ferguson to take anything for granted. Yet if United see off Liverpool at Old Trafford a week next Saturday, the bookies will pay out on them and even Benitez may have to concede the title.

The Champions League, in which Ferguson is keen to match Brian Clough's feat of consecutive triumphs, may prove tougher. United's failure to record an away goal against Inter leaves them vulnerable to the prospect of Jose Mourinho's side stealing one themselves, but they were transparently superior. Moreover, there have been signs, notably when United beat Roma 7-1 in 2006, that Italian teams increasingly struggle with the tempo and intensity of the English game.

Fixture fatigue could be the biggest threat to United – they move on to Newcastle on Wednesday, with an FA Cup tie at Fulham also looming before they receive Inter – which partly explains why Ferguson will trust in some of his fringe players this afternoon. Darron Gibson, 21, a midfielder from Derry, pictured, and Danny Welbeck, 18, a striker of Ghanaian descent, are poised to start, as is the more established 21-year-old centre-back Jonny Evans.

Ferguson will be aware of the folly of under- estimating opponents who, for all their perennial upheavals, possess pockets of quality and, in manager Harry Redknapp, have a wily campaigner who has conjured two FA Cup victories at Old Trafford. For the United manager to undermine their chances of winning a final by miscalculating the balance between youth and experience – and risk spoiling the possibility of a unique nap hand – would be an act of hubris.

But he clearly believes his fledglings can overcome Spurs' finest, especially if he calls on Carlos Tevez and Paul Scholes, who were unused substitutes at San Siro, not to mention Wayne Rooney, who was surprisingly restricted to a seven-minute cameo. If names on the bench are a measure of a club's strength in depth, the quintuple is well within United's compass.

Nemanja Vidic, their Serbian centre-back, should return after being suspended on Tuesday. While the focus fell on Edwin van der Sar during United's record-breaking run of clean sheets, Vidic's blend of poise and power has made him a favourite with a crowd that normally reveres attackers, as well as a frontrunner for the Footballer of the Year award. It remains to be seen whether there will be frontrunners – plural – for him to get among at Wembley, with Redknapp likely to pack midfield and start with one forward.

Spurs can take encouragement from the precedent of last year's final, when they ended a similarly barren run against Chelsea to win the trophy under Juande Ramos, but from little else. Their outstanding players of recent times, Dimitar Berbatov and Michael Carrick, were picked off by Ferguson and January signings Robbie Keane, Wilson Palacios and Carlo Cudicini are cup-tied.

Another success for Redknapp at Wembley, to follow Portsmouth's FA Cup win, would hearten all who find romance in the game's unpredictability and instinctively rail against plans for world domination, whether by 50ft arachnids or Scots with the Spiders of Queen's Park on their CV. But the Spurs manager, who turns 62 tomorrow and watched from terraces when Bill Nicholson's side swept all before them 48 years ago, would swap victory today for Premier League survival.

In much the same way, the Carling Cup would be the one bauble Ferguson would grudgingly forego if he could be guaranteed a humble quadruple.