Football: United ready to go the distance: Ferguson to miss Pallister as Atkinson looks to history books

MANCHESTER UNITED are tonight charged with repairing not only their European Cup bandwagon, but also the reputation of English football, which has gone down the plughole here, in a hotbed steamier than any Turkish bath.

Galatasaray's stylish 3-3 draw at Old Trafford and England's demise in the World Cup have together imbued the Turks with a bullish sense of superiority for the second leg of a second-round tie which represents the gateway to the promised land of the Champions' League.

Turkey confidently expect their champions to progress, and they are enjoying portraying such celebrated visitors as no-hope underdogs.

A splenetic English-language editorial in one newspaper tells 'Our dear British friends' that they were 'taught a lesson in football in their own backyard', and that 'we are all waiting to have a good laugh about your fabricated excuses for losing'.

Laugh? It went down like a Tommy Cooper fez, Alex Ferguson catching the mood in making light of this most volatile of venues. What was all the fuss about, he wondered. 'They've obviously never been to a Glasgow wedding'.

Daunted or not, the Govan guvnor's team will be bridesmaids again unless they give of their very best against insidious opponents whose pace on the break and clever passing embarrassed them time and again at home. On a night for strong men, United's prospect of overturning the odds and achieving what would be a notable away win are diminished by serious doubts surrounding the fitness of Gary Pallister and Bryan Robson.

Pallister's place in central defence is jeopardised by the ankle injury which forced him to miss Saturday's win over Queen's Park Rangers, and Robson, who is set for a holding role in midfield, consulted a specialist yesterday about an ear problem related to his recent operation for sinusitis.

Paul Parker is expected to continue at centre-half, with Mike Phelan again deputising at right-back, but plan B will have to come into effect if Robson is ruled out, in which event Phelan would probably play in midfield, with Lee Martin coming in at full-back.

Ferguson could have done without the uncertainty of it all, but he was in an upbeat mood as he gazed out across the Bosphorus from a baroque hotel which was the sultan's palace in the days when the Ottoman empire, not English football, was the sick man of Europe.

'Actually, I was banking on having Pallister,' he mused, quickly changing tack to accentuate the positive. United had rescued such a situation before, in overcoming Montpellier in the Cup-Winners' Cup two years ago, and there was encouragement in the fact that they were reserving their best performances this season for the second half.

'I don't have any apprehensions about the game. We'll go the distance all right, and we'll handle the atmosphere.'

He had not expected to concede three goals, and a winning position at home, but he had warned of the match-winning potential of Tugay, the Turks' playmaker, and the pacy Kubilay in attack.

Warning his players was one thing, but seeing is believing, and he was satisfied that they would be better prepared this time.

'If we get knocked out,' Ferguson said, 'we'll hold our hands up. It will be our own bloody fault after the way we handled the game at Old Trafford, but we're not looking at it that way. We're looking at what happens if we win. We want to play Milan and Barcelona.'

And if they lose? 'The share price will probably go down.' Along with English prestige.

Football's finances, page 38

Norwich key is self-belief, Reports and results, page 39