Manchester United and Manchester City were at the centre of security fears last night over the scheduling of their Carling Cup third-round matches.
United are due to play at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers on September 23, the same night as City play host to Fulham in the competition.
But with the matches coming only three days after the Manchester derby at Old Trafford, Greater Manchester Police (GMP) want the games to be played on different days as a safety precaution given that emotions may still be running high.
GMP were in talks with both clubs yesterday and are confident a sensible solution will be found in conjunction with the Football League, although that is likely to entail one of the clubs agreeing to play on Tuesday.
United’s game against Wolves is likely to be screened live on television, however, which could make moving it more problematic.
Advertisement
City are understood to have offered to play their tie on Thursday given that they do not face West Ham United in the Barclays Premier League until the Monday after, only for the suggestion to be rejected by Fulham because it would have left Roy Hodgson’s team with less than two days to prepare for their league game against Arsenal at Craven Cottage.
Police officials were happy for the teams to play at home on the same night last December, when United entertained Blackburn Rovers in the Carling Cup quarter-finals while City took on Paris Saint-Germain in the Uefa Cup - the first time that had happened for 11½ years - but they consider this to be a higher-risk situation.
Owen Hargreaves, the United midfield player, was included yesterday in Sir Alex Ferguson’s 25-man squad for the Champions League this season. Although there are no guarantees that Hargreaves will have recovered from a double knee operation in time to play a role in United’s group-stage games, his surprise inclusion comes at the expense of Zoran Tosic, the Serbia winger signed from Partizan Belgrade in January.
Edwin van der Sar, the United goalkeeper, has raised the possibility of coming out of international retirement to play for Holland at the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa. “I will focus on United and then we will see what is happening with the national team,” he said.