Nemanja Vidic sits out friendly to safeguard Manchester United defence

Sir Alex Ferguson has put in place measures to help ensure Manchester United have sufficient back-up for the injured Rio Ferdinand going into the derby against Manchester City on Saturday.

Ferguson has negotiated an agreement with the Serbian football association so that the club captain, Nemanja Vidic, is not involved in the game against Israel in Tel Aviv on Wednesday and can concentrate on facing Carlos Tevez at Old Trafford.

Ferdinand has been ruled out because of the calf injury he suffered in the warm-up before the 2-1 defeat at Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday and Jonny Evans has become the latest United player to withdraw from international duty. He cited a sore ankle for not taking any part in Northern Ireland's friendly against Scotland. Chris Smalling had already withdrawn from the England Under-21 game against Italy because of an unspecified injury described only as a "knock".

As it stands, that means Vidic is the only fit centre-half at the club apart from Wes Brown, who is now effectively fifth choice and considered leaving Old Trafford in the January transfer window.

However, it is understood the withdrawals are based on precautionary reasons, United taking a better-safe-than-sorry policy ahead of a match that could go a long way to determining whether they win a record 19th championship. Ferguson has said Ferdinand will miss two to three weeks and was concerned about the possibility of losing Smalling or Evans in a round of friendlies that represents a source of extreme irritation for the United manager at this stage of the season.

As well as issues involving his defence, Ferguson also has misgivings about whether Javier Hernández will be able to take part against Roberto Mancini's team. The Mexican is in Atlanta to play in a friendly against Bosnia, which kicks off at 1am English time on Thursday, and his plane back to Manchester does not arrive until 9am on Friday. The concern at Old Trafford is that a long flight directly after a match, the jet lag and stiffening up of joints might mean the striker is not in a suitable condition to play in a Saturday lunchtime game.

City do not have the same problem because Bosnia agreed to allow the club's new £27m signing, Edin Dzeko, a week to prepare for the derby rather than take a tiring round trip to the United States. Similarly, Argentina have not included Tevez in their get-together in Geneva for a game against Portugal.

Park Ji-sung, the United midfielder, has returned to training after being given a fortnight off at the end of the Asian Cup. Park, 30 this month, led South Korea to the semi-finals and has retired from international football because of the difficulties of the travelling.

This article was written by Daniel Taylor, for The Guardian on Tuesday 8th February 2011 22.31 Europe/London

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