United prepare fitting feast for Giggs' century

(GETTY IMAGES)

Springtime in south central France and Sir Alex Ferguson, fresh from the flattening of Arsenal, arrives with a spring in his step and Ryan Giggs at the front of his mind. If selected to face Lyons tonight, Giggs will become only the eighth player to chalk up 100 European Cup appearances and someone risked testing the Manchester United manager's knowledge by asking about the first of those games, "against Gothenburg".

A pause, a frown and a retort. "It was Honved, 1993," ventured Ferguson, who simply does not forget nights like the one in Budapest when he blooded a 19-year-old Giggs and later substituted him because his side were 3-2 up and coasting rather more than he would have liked.

For Giggs, leaving the field early that night was about as severe as European blemishes have got and if United progress as far as they desperately want to in this Munich anniversary year, he might conceivably overhaul Sir Bobby Charlton's record of 759 United appearances in the final in Moscow, three months from now. Tonight will take him to 746, with a maximum of 21 games left for United this season.

Ferguson said yesterday that Giggs' appearances would be rationed – "Ryan won't play in all the games, but he may play in all the important ones," he said – but his acute sense of history helps him see the opportunity. Giggs could overhaul the record, he said recently. "I hope it's [in] the Champions League Final."

Ferguson was not the only member of United's contingent on top of his game yesterday. Patrice Evra, one of their best performers this season, rendered Lyons' official translator redundant at the pre-match press conference by proceeding to answer questions in English and French.

There are certainly grounds to believe that United might feast, in the footballing sense, here in France's gastronomic capital. While Ferguson's respect for Lyons and their president Jean-Michel Aulas are well known – "they've sold [Michael] Essien, [Mahamadou] Diarra, [Eric]Abidal and [Sylvain] Wiltord, half their team in the last few years, and replaced them with younger players," he observed – the sense of crisis concerning coach Alain Perrin will be familiar to Portsmouth fans who remember his seven-month reign in 2005.

The side have largely frittered away a commanding lead in Ligue 1, with a defeat to Le Mans last weekend leaving then just one point ahead in a championship they have won for the past six seasons, and the prospect of Cristiano Ronaldo running at full-back Fabio Grosso – whose defending does not match his ability going forward – fills locals here with some dread.

Ferguson does have Karim Benzema, who has scored 16 goals in Ligue 1 this season, to preoccupy him and he did not exactly quash suggestions that the striker might be a replacement for Louis Saha in the summer – or, for that matter, that left winger Hatem Ben Arfa might not be a target. "Benzema and Ben Arfa are only 20 years of age. Benzema was a local boy and they are both in the France team, which tells you how good they are," he said. "They have good talent, we've known about them for quite a while now."

Perrin, whose side are expected to sit deep and counter-attack, has spent the past few days dismissing suggestions he is under pressure, even though Aulas is understood to have given the team a dressing down at the weekend. For his part, Ferguson has given thought to suggestions that Saturday's win at Old Trafford was as much to do with Arsenal's limited ambition as his own side's class.

"Some people like Alan Shearer said the way Arsenal played showed the FA Cup doesn't matter to them," Ferguson said. "But if you listened to what Arsène Wenger said before the game, it didn't come across that way, did it? [Arsenal] were missing their two full-backs and [Emmanuel] Adebayor. But beyond that it's difficult to say how much difference there is between [Mathieu] Flamini and Gilberto [Silva].

Ferguson seems to be doing what he can to put talk of the Munich anniversary in the past. "Today is just a day, tomorrow is a big day. You can't keeping going back," he said. He also continues to assert that the extra year's experience his side have might help them to go further than last year's semi-final. "Ronaldo and Rooney are at their fourth attempt at Europe with us. You really expect them to get better each year," he said. "People said last year that they hadn't scored much in Europe, but they did that last season so they have ended that one. Last year in the semi-finals we didn't have the resources to get through the second leg." If those conclusions are right, that night of rich meaning for Giggs might just be on.

Tonight's probable teams

Lyons

Coupet

Clerc

Squillaci

Boumsong

Grosso

Toulalan

Juninho

Kallstrom

Govou

Ben Arfa

Benzema

Man Utd

Van der Sar

Brown

Vidic

Ferdinand

Evra

Hargreaves

Scholes

Ronaldo

Tevez

Giggs

Rooney

Referee: L M Cantalejo (Spain), TV: Sky Sports 1 Kick-off: 19.45