Return of the forgotten striker beckons?

During Fergie's post Liverpool match press conference, the United manager was asked about his dire lack of striker options after Ferguson confirmed that Larsson is set to return home to Sweden later this week.

According to Fergie, United have plenty of options, he stated that we have Giggs, Rooney, Ronaldo, Saha and Ole who can all play down the middle, added to which he even stated that Alan Smith would figure before the end of the season. The thing is since breaking his leg, Smith has barely featured for United's first team and when the former Leeds man has played, he's never really caught the imagination of the fans, and more importantly it seems something has upset Ferguson and his backroom team.

There has been some evidence of Smith and Ronaldo not seeing eye to eye on the pitch on occasion, that wouldn't help the former Leeds striker one bit, as the last thing Fergie would want right now is for players falling out on the field of play. Smith also dives into challenges, but in that respect his disciplinary record has been quite good, certainly much better than in his Leeds days, he lacks pace too and personally I believe he doesn't link up that well with Rooney, those two factors are perhaps the main reasons why he's not been in the team. Though to be totally fair to Smith he's not had that many games up front.

On top of all those factors, United have made several failed attempts at offloading Smith, so it just shows how desperately short of cover up front the Reds are that Fergie is now talking about bringing back United's forgotten striker.

They do say that Fergie is a lucky manager and how ironic it would be if Smith went on to prove Fergie wrong and end the season as a United hero by playing his full part in helping the Reds to lift some silverware.