Ferguson admits he is gambling on Rooneys fitness

Sir Alex Ferguson was remembering 1947, the year the River Clyde last froze over, prompting someone to suggest that he really has walked on water. The Manchester United manager might well need that kind of quality given that the fallibilities exposed by his side"s FA Cup humiliation by Leeds United six days ago have not persuaded him to venture into the transfer market this month.

Ferguson agreed yesterday that he was taking a gamble on Wayne Rooney"s continued fitness by not spending this winter. "Yes, that is a possibility," he said. "It"s true that we don"t have great options, if Rooney were to get injured, in the sense that we don"t have top quality like Cristiano Ronaldo, who could play anywhere, of course. "

Rooney"s 15 goals to date are more than double the next best United player (Michael Owen, on seven) and Ferguson"s indication that he will involve his new Senegalese striker Mame Biram Diouf, 22, signed from the Norwegian club Molde, at Birmingham today will not provide much succour to those supporters who view the club"s first third-round exit since 1984 as evidence that the squad is packed with far fewer champions, while those still there – Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Edwin van der Sar – are on borrowed time.

The temptation to conclude that United cannot, rather than will not, go into the market waving that pound;80m Real Madrid cheque, is all the greater given the Glazer family"s staggering interest payments, which have led them to try once again to refinance through bank bonds the pound;700m debts which their 2005 takeover has imposed. But Ferguson was at his most insistent on this point yesterday – reasserting, at the end of the week in which Manchester City"s debt has been effectively wiped out by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, that he has not become a poor man among managers and that any failure to deliver is to be laid on his shoulders, not the Glazers. "Believe me, there is no impact," he said.

"I don"t have any concerns about the financial situation. I am really confident about that. There has been talk about a bond issue and I think that"s a good thing; anything that helps with the repayment of the debt is a good thing. There is debt there but it has never interrupted my plans.