Yorke & Cole Back The Boss

Treble winners Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole believe Sir Alex Ferguson has a formula for success when deciding how to rotate his strikers for important Manchester United fixtures.

The boss has the unenviable task of choosing between Wayne Rooney, Robin van Persie, Danny Welbeck and Javier Hernandez this Easter weekend as the Reds face Sunderland on Saturday in the Barclays Premier League before tackling Chelsea in the FA Cup just 48 hours later.

But Yorke, who scored 66 goals in 152 United appearances, is confident his former manager will get it right and might even take into account previous form after Rooney and Chicha both recently scored against Rafa Benitez’s men at Old Trafford.

“Well this is what the manger gets paid the big bucks for - to make these types of calls,” Dwight recently told ManUtd.com. “Thankfully, he gets it right more times than wrong. I’m sure he will work it out because he has a good way of doing it.

“That was evident against Chelsea when he brought Rooney and Chicharito back into the attack and they both scored. They have a good record against this team. Some players naturally love to score against certain teams and the manager does his homework.

“You just have a knack of scoring against certain teams, ask any striker. Coley always seemed to score against Newcastle every time he played and every time I played against Coventry City, I scored.

“I don’t know how it works but there are just teams that you always score against. It does happen and it happened for me. I loved playing Coventry and Coley loved Newcastle.”

Of course, Yorke and Cole formed a formidable partnership during the 1998/99 campaign that went down as one of the greatest ever. But despite this, the pair were often rotated as Sir Alex fielded Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in certain fixtures.

Speaking at the launch of The Legends Are Back, a forthcoming charity match between United and Real Madrid, Cole echoed Yorke’s sentiment that the boss will make the right decisions this weekend but explained why it’s never easy missing out as a player.

“That’s the manager’s decision to make; we were in that position 10 or 12 years ago,” Andy said. “Everyone has run into a little bit of form and it’s hard to say one is playing a bit better than the other.

“Everyone is asking who the manager is going to pick, but that’s why he gets paid to make those decisions. Naturally, you are bitterly disappointed when you are left out but everyone plays their part in the end, which is a good thing.”