The England captain showed no ill-effects from his injury during a 45-minute Manchester Senior Cup exertion against Oldham Athletic’s youthful second string at Stalybridge Celtic’s Bower Fold ground.And with the trip to Everton beginning a crucial week of fixtures for United, who face Rangers in the Champions League on Sept 14 before entertaining Liverpool at Old Trafford five days later, Ferdinand is now likely to challenge for a swift return to first-team action after proving his fitness. The 31 year-old has been sidelined since suffering knee ligament damage while training with England in Rustenburg on June 4, a week before the start of the World Cup in South Africa earlier this summer.
An apparently innocuous challenge on Emile Heskey resulted in the £30million defender being ruled out of the tournament, but his return to fitness with United has taken longer than initially anticipated.
Early hopes that Ferdinand would be fit for the start of the season were quickly ruled out and manager Sir Alex Ferguson revealed during United’s summer tour of North America that a setback had left the former West Ham and Leeds centre-half facing a September comeback.
A further gloomy bulletin from Ferguson two weeks ago suggested that Ferdinand’s return would be further delayed until the end this month, but the player stepped up training last week and he was able to participate with the first-team squad prior to the international break.
Ferdinand was by no means given an easy ride by the home side, with teenaged forward Andrew Crompton clearly relishing the opportunity to test himself against his illustrious opponent.
And while Crompton’s pace and tenacity was not enough to worry Ferdinand, the United defender was given little room for complacency by the youngster.
"Rio is always the same player," said United reserve team manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. "It is a while since he has played but he was still calm. He has get through an important 45 minutes, straight after two very hard training sessions yesterday and the day before so we are delighted with him.
"It was always planned that he would play 45 minutes. I am not sure he needs any more games. Rio is a naturally fit lad Today was about distances and getting tighter to the ball. Now he is available for selection again."
With United midfielder Paul Scholes watching from the stands, fellow first-team squad members Wes Brown and Anderson were also in action as they continued their own comebacks from injury lay-offs.
Anderson managed 60 minutes for the reserves against Manchester City last week in his first outing following a cruciate ligament injury while Brown, who was sidelined for two months with a broken foot sustained in March, once again appeared for the second string, despite proving his fitness on the club’s pre-season tour.
Portuguese forward Bebe, whose absence from last week’s reserve game prompted a staunch defence of the £7.4million signing by Ferguson, was not selected for this game after being called into the Portugal U-21 squad for Friday’s clash against England in Barcelos.
Meanwhile, Manchester United chief executive David Gill has admitted that the club has fallen short of matching last season’s figures for the sale of season tickets.
But, despite a proposed fans’ boycott of season tickets as a protest against the club’s owners, the Glazer family, Gill insists sales of 51,800 are a positive figure.
Gill said: “Last year our target was 54,000 season tickets, we’ve sold 51,800 (this year), which is pretty good in the current climate. “We’ve sold more season tickets than the capacity of most Premier League grounds. Our executive seat sales are on track as compared with last year in a different market. The ticket sales have held up.”
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