Danny Welbeck has been spurred on by the trust of Sir Alex Ferguson, and he aims to repay that faith by fulfilling his potential in United's first-team.

The Longsight-born striker, who turned 19 last week, has been handed four starts this season, while Sir Alex's decision not to hold back in the transfer market in the summer was partly based on the promise of players like Welbeck and Federico Macheda.

"It’s always special to hear stuff like that from the manager," Danny says in tonight's edition of United Review. "But I don’t just sit there thinking it’s all going to fall into place for me now.

"Now’s the time to work harder than I’ve ever worked before, take heed of the manager’s words, and push on."

Welbeck was one of six young players to be given a chance to impress in the Champions League last week

Toure seeks transfer from Barcelona
Barcelona star Yaya Toure wants a move to Manchester United or Chelsea after being left out against Real Madrid. The Ivory Coast midfielder, the brother of Manchester City's Kolo, only appeared as a second-half sub on Sunday night for Barcelona in El Clasico. The 26-year-old has failed to command a regular place in Pep Guardiola's Champions League winners this season. His agent Dimitri Seluk said: "We're not happy with this. He is not playing. It is very strange not to be having minutes. If a team like Chelsea or Manchester United would come to us, we are obviously open to talking. Yaya won't just sit and wait. He is 26 years old and is nominated for the Golden Ball award. It is ridiculous for a player like this not to be playing. I don't know what will happen, but I can say once thing for sure: my player won't be remaining on the bench. This is 100 per cent for sure.”
Neil McLeman, The Mirror

In other Barcelona-related news, Lionel Messi has picked up this year’s Ballon d’Or award, pipping ex-Red Cristiano Ronaldo to the honour. Wayne Rooney came in eighth (the highest-placed English-based player), Ryan Giggs 14th and  Nemanja Vidic joint 16th. Despite Rooney’s high finish, he’s missed out on the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year shortlist, as reported by The Mirror. Ryan Giggs is in there, though.

Elsewhere, there’s a lot of speculation surrounding Sir Alex’s team selection tonight, although The Sun claims the club’s youngsters have received a great vote of confidence from the manager after he indicated he’d stick with them, despite defeat in last week’s Champions League tie.

The Times have revealed how much Premier League clubs pay to agents, with United among the lowest payers to players’ agents. Neighbours Manchester City top the list, having ppaid out more than £13million in one year.

Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City target Milos Krasic is "likely to move to England" in January, according to his agent.United have most recently been linked with the 25-year-old, whilst the Blues, Gunners and Blues are also said to be interested in the Serbian winger.

CSKA Moscow star Krasic is also wanted by teams in Italy - but they limit the amount of non-EU players, which is not an issue for Premier League clubs.

"I think that if Krasic leaves CSKA in January, he is 90 per cent likely to go to England," Dejan Joksimovic told Calciomercato.

"Manchester United? There are three or four big English clubs, with important financial resources, interested in him."

Both AC and Inter Milan are also reported to be keen on the highly-rated Serb - but Joksicmovic admits a move to Serie A would be difficult in January.

"I don't know anything about Inter while I heard something about AC Milan a month ago through my partner, but nothing concrete," he continued.

"In January is much more probably the English track will be followed, also because there aren't problems about extra EU players.

"If Krasic won't leave in January, in summer Italy could return as a possibility.

"And if Milan were to come forward, it would be an excellent solution for Milos, no doubt about it."

Sir Alex Ferguson has issued an angry response to criticism levelled at some of his young players during the Reds’ 1-0 Champions League defeat to Besiktas last week. And the boss defiantly states that his intent to play them against Tottenham in the Carling Cup on Tuesday will not be swayed.

Opportunities were given to six players under the age of 22: Danny Welbeck (then 18), Federico Macheda (18), Rafael (19), Gabriel Obertan (20), Anderson (21) and Darron Gibson (22).

“It will be the same players that played on Wednesday,” he said of his team for Tuesday’s visit of Harry Redknapp’s side. “Their future is well marked out, I think.”

The press were clearly unimpressed, but Sir Alex took particular exception to one report.

“One journalist wrote, ‘there’s no future for these players, no tomorrow for them’," Sir Alex said incredulously. "What an idiot. I can’t believe that. It’s unbelievable. When Beckham, Butt, Scholes and all those lads played in 1996, they were 22 years of age - three years ahead of these players. So that kind of reaction is amazing, isn’t it?

“Of course they will grow from that experience. I was confident of playing them, and they had every right to play. They will play on Tuesday, too.”

The performance against Besiktas was typically youthful – a strong start, full of enthusiasm, but without the know-how to make possession and chances count.

“They got anxious. They’d made good chances but hurried things - that’s not the biggest crime in the world. We’re not talking about ability here, we’re talking about experience.”

Seemingly, ifthe critics had their way, these young players would be stuck in the Catch-22 of never getting the experience of playing on such occasions precisely because they too inexperienced.

“That’s why we have to play them,” says Sir Alex. “Games are the one thing we have to give them. We can’t just give them that old head that helps you deal with situations like on Wednesday in the final third of the field.

“The number of young players we have is stacking up, they need to be challenged. I thought they did OK and I didn’t think they deserved that kind of criticism. But the same journalists will be wanting articles from them when they are stars, going cap-in-hand, begging them for interviews in a few years’ time – mark my words on that. They’ll be hypocritical and say, ‘I’ve always said you were going to be a wonderful player’. What a world we live in.

“The thing is, Alan Hansen made comments in front of millions of people on TV and gets slaughtered for it, the journalist I mentioned writes that and it gets buried in the middle of a newspaper article and gets off with it. He should be sacked!”