Hargreaves blow mars United win

These are supposed to be occasions for those of advanced years to settle back and admire the players of the future but Sir Alex Ferguson's mind was focused on clear and present dangers last night. After revealing that Owen Hargreaves, the man he signed as United's defensive shield, is to miss the rest of the season recovering from surgery for a tendinitis condition which is beginning to look career threatening, he had to look long and hard for a clear case that Carlos Tevez is worth the £32m his club want to lay out to make his loan deal permanent.

Tevez whistled around the edge of the QPR box like a tornado for an hour but there was good reason for his anxious glance towards the touchline when the young striker Danny Welbeck jumped up from the bench. He stayed on, converting a 75th-minute penalty to end his 11-game, two-month goal drought. The size of the Argentine's goal celebration said everything. "We had a lot of chances and they are not going in for us," Ferguson said last night. "But it'll come. It'll come."

Hargreaves' absence is Ferguson's biggest anxiety, with Paul Scholes also missing until December's World Club Championships in Japan, at the earliest. After seeing specialists in London and Sweden, Hargreaves told his manager that he wanted to put himself under the care of Dr Richard Steadman, who operated on his right knee at his Colorado clinic on Monday – successfully, according to United. An operation on the left knee will follow in a few weeks. "He's out for the season unfortunately but at the end of the day it's been really difficult for the lad being out for so long and we are hoping to put it to bed and get him back a fit person, next season," Ferguson said.

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It is a desperate blow for a player whose performance for England at the 2006 World Cup changed opinions about him but whose career has been blighted pretty much ever since. First he suffered the broken leg which kept him out of most of Bayern Munich's 2006-07 campaign and the tendinitis has limited him to just 25 United starts since his £18m arrival from Bayern Munich and made any ballwork painful. His two league appearances this season, at Liverpool and Chelsea, not to mention his starting place in May's Champions League final, have made his value to Ferguson apparent.

It took time for the United manager to find much comfort in last night's teeming Old Trafford rain. There was a mouse running up the touchline in the second half, which fourth official Colin Webster fielded well with both hands, and Ferguson's best laid plans also took time to reach some resolution. Anderson, the man he is looking to with Hargreaves and Scholes missing, assumed a more advanced role than usual but there was not much evidence that he is either playmaker or a man about to break his United scoring duck. Taking a return pass from Tevez into the box, as the half wore on, he lost control. Tevez's output was much the same, for all his effort.

The emerging player with most promise is Anderson's compatriot Rafael who, nearly an hour into the game, produced the first of United's few moments of brilliance. His flick on the right touchline beat two challengers and let him lay a ball into the path of Park Ji-Sung who, running into the box, thumped a right-foot shot off the inside of Radek Cerny's right hand post. An identical link-up between the two created another chance, two minutes from time. It took Ferguson's intervention to change things. Four minutes after sending Welbeck on, the lively young striker was felled by Peter Ramage as he ran on to Nani's ball and after a theatrical run-up Tevez deposited the penalty low to Cerny's right.

Thereon in, United almost conspired to take things to extra time, Emmanuel Jorge Ledesma firing wide four minutes into injury time, though Rangers had not fashioned an effort of any description until 73 minutes. Nani had a strong 20-yard shot parried away but Ferguson's night was capped by the sight of Gary Neville, just starting to reassert his own place again, hobbling off to the dressing room just before the end.

Manchester United (4-3-3): Kuszczak; Da Silva, Neville (Vidic, 90), Evans, O'Shea; Possebon (Welbeck, 72), Anderson, Simpson; Nani, Tevez, Park. Substitutes not used: Foster, Carrick, Manucho, Cleverley, Gray.

Queen's Park Rangers (4-5-1): Cerny; Ramage, Hall, Stewart, Connolly; Buzsaky (Agyemang, 32), Mahon, Parejo (Ledesma, ht), Rowlands, Cook (Di Carmine, 78); Blackstock. Substitutes not used: Cole, Delaney, Gorkss, Di Carmine, Ephraim.

Referee: P Dowd (Stoke-on-Trent).