Saha back as options increase

Louis Saha's latest return to fitness enabled Sir Alex Ferguson to name his best 16 of the season so far on Saturday.

The French striker was one of five internationals on the United bench, the others being Nani, John O'Shea, Tomasz Kusczak and Michael Carrick. Like Saha, Carrick was making his first appearance in the squad since the 1-0 win over Roma a month ago.

The quality of substitutes available for the Reds certainly pleased Sir Alex.

"I had the strongest bench that we've had all season, that’s encouraging for us," he said.

"The lads who have been playing all this time have been fantastic and we are very proud of them. But we can now alternate our teams a little bit better."

O'Shea, Carrick and Saha all came on in the second half against Arsenal, and the latter caught the eye when United scored what looked to be the winning goal.

“Louis Saha made a marvellous contribution when he came on," praised Sir Alex.

"He made a great pass for the goal to Evra who squared it for Ronaldo. At that point, I thought we were home and dry.”

United will hope to be home and dry in the Champions League group stage on Wednesday night when they take on Dynamo Kyiv at Old Trafford.

This time Sir Alex will have seven subs - one of them could be Gary Neville, who played his first game for seven months in the reserves on Thursday.