Simon will be here from 7.15pm, but in the meantime read Louise Taylor on Sir Alex's light hearted handling of the worst injury crisis in his tenure.

Ferguson tries to make light of Manchester United's defensive crisis

Sir Alex Ferguson arrived in Germany today accompanied by one fit and established defender and facing the worst injury crisis in all his years at Old Trafford. Thirteen of Manchester United's first-team squad are injured and while several of those players are due to return against Aston Villa on Saturday, Rio Ferdinand is out indefinitely and Ferguson tonight confirmed that Jonny Evans and John O'Shea will not play again this year. United's resources are so stretched that Oliver Gill, the teenage son of the club's chief executive, David Gill, and a rookie centre-half, will be on the bench for the Champions League match against Wolfsburg.

"Wes Brown will be fit for Saturday but Evans and O'Shea will not be back [until] January," said United's manager, before his skeleton squad – of just 19 players – trained at the Volkswagen Arena. "There's no good news when you've got all these players injured. I've got a lot of thinking to do about the team selection."

At least Ferguson has retained a sense of humour. Asked if he was concerned that Patrice Evra would be his only recognised defender, he said: "Well, it's worth trying going with one defender. Manchester United are always first at doing something, so we'll try that one tomorrow. It's easy to organise one person. Seriously, we know we have a difficult task. I need a back four that can unite. And good passing ability is going to be important, considering we don't have natural centre-backs."

Evra, normally a left-back, is likely to partner Michael Carrick in central defence with Darren Fletcher at right-back and, possibly, Ji-Sung Park at left-back. Gill, until recently a pupil at Manchester Grammar School, could play a part.

"Oliver's a young boy," said Ferguson who may also use Oliver Norwood, Cameron Stewart, Matty James and Magnus Eikrem. "He's 19 now but it's his first year as a professional after combining his education with playing for the last two years. He's decided to take the big step and go into full-time professional football – that's brave and we applaud him for it."

Gill has made nine appearances for the reserves this season. "Oliver is starting to develop physically," Ferguson said. "At first he was very rakish and gangly and lacked strength. But he's starting to come together in terms of physique. He's doing very well. Who his father is doesn't concern me. If Oliver's good enough, he plays. I had a son [Darren] who played for me for four or five years and he was treated exactly the same as any other player. It will be the same for Oliver."

Ferguson's assistant, Mike Phelan, has hinted that United are interested in Edin Dzeko, Wolsburg's highly rated Bosnian centre-forward, but the manager was circumspect. "There is nothing happening at this moment in time concerning Dzeko," he said.

United have qualified for the Champions League knockout phase but some fans are concerned they may fail to secure the point that would guarantee first place in Group B. Ferguson, who left Wayne Rooney at home to nurse "a hamstring" and hopes the England striker will be fit to face Villa, when Nemanja Vidic should also return, said: "I'm not sure whether coming first or second in the group really matters. You're going to face strong teams either way, Real Madrid or Barcelona, Inter or AC Milan, they're all quality, all much of a muchness. And I have to look at the bigger picture, the Premier League games we have coming up."

If Villa are understandably a higher priority than a Wolfsburg side still capable of reaching the latter stages, Ferguson will not want to fly home embarrassed. "I'd never heard of Wolfsburg before they won the Bundesliga last year," he said. "But we have a lot of thinking to do because this is a big game for them. And they will be delighted we have so many injuries."

Paul Scholes hinted such complacency could be ill advised. "We have talented players who can play anywhere," said the United midfielder. "And although Wolfsburg have two excellent forwards in Dzeko and Grafite who score a lot of goals, they also concede a lot." Michael Owen, Ferguson's sole fit established forward, will hope to prove him right.

7.15pm: Great Christmas cracker punchlines of our time:

• A woolly jumper
• A doyouthinkhesawus
• Croak-a-cola
• A blood bank
• Darren Fletcher and Michael Carrick

Wolfsburg have Grafite and Edin Dzeko up front, the pair who terrorised Germany last season. Wolfsburg have to win to go through. The pitch is dodgy. United have a couple of midfielders in central defence. So what chance a United clean sheet today?

And without further ado, here are those comedy teams:
Wolfsburg: Benaglio, Schafer, Barzagli, Ricardo Costa, Riether, Josue, Gentner, Hasebe, Misimovic, Dzeko, Grafite. Subs: Lenz, Simunek, Ziani, Johnson, Madlung, Pekarik, Dejagah.
Man Utd: Kuszczak, Park, Fletcher, Carrick, Evra, Gibson, Scholes, Nani, Welbeck, Anderson, Owen. Subs: Foster, Valencia, Obertan, Eikrem, James, Gill, Stewart.
Referee: Bjorn Kuipers (Holland).

7.36pm: Sky appear to be taking this game a little lightly. Gary McAllister, Ruud Gullit and Jamie Redknapp are with Richard Keys, and they've been talking about everything and anything else but this for the last half-hour. They have just stopped talking about Holland's 2018 World Cup bid to show a highlights clip of Grafite, intercut with – and see if you can work this one out, it's pretty clever – some graffiti. Grafite. Graffiti. Geddit? It's not just Manchester United who haven't sent their first-team to this one, it seems.

7.42pm: The teams are out. Now, who are this lot in red?

7.44pm: "I don't what all the fuss is about David Gill's son getting on the team," writes Ben Bamford. "My Dad once got me a job washing his car and no one accused him of nepotism…" Any further examples of dads getting you jobs, do let me know.

1min: And they're off!

2mins: So Evra, Carrick and Fletcher are the back three, with Park a right wing-back and Nani on the left.

3mins: "When I finished university, my dad got me a summer job working as a postman," writes Myles Winstone. "It wasn't much it was better than walking the streets."

4mins: Wolfsburg already on the attack, with decent crosses from left and right both failing to find their man.

7mins: I've got a cold. My children have spent most of the last 48 hours vomiting, and almost none of it sleeping. Every atom of my being is crying out to be allowed to go to sleep, except for that small fraction that would like a job to go to tomorrow if you don't mind. I am trusting here in the healing power of football. It's worked before...

9mins: The ball's a bit stuck in midfield, which is all well and good as far as United are concerned, what with what with a healthy majority of their team being midfielders by trade. "Back in the days when student loans were still a bad idea waiting to happen, I managed to drink my way through a substantial overdraft and had to rely on my dad getting me a job shovelling sh!t on a pig farm in Lincolnshire," writes Jon Lever. "Apart from the lingering porcine odour, the only thing I remember about the farm is that the woman who sorted the payroll was Enoch Powell's daughter. Feel free to insert your own witticism at this point." Or not. Whatever.

11mins: Slightly belated scoreflash of the day: Chelsea 0 Apoel Nicosia 1 (Marcin Zewlakow 6)

12mins: Danny Welbeck might very well be the answer to England's striking problems, but he could do with brushing up on the offside law at some point. He's just been caught out for the second time, by an embarrassing margin and despite a perfect view looking across the Wolfsburg back-line.

13mins: Hasebe runs in a straight line through the United "defence", until Carrick brings him down from behind in the penalty area. To be fair, he'd just twatted the ball off the pitch but it was an almost certain penalty, and failing that a goal kick. The referee points to the corner.

16mins: "Myles (3mins) should have realised that would be part and parcel," puns someone whose name I can't ascertain. Darron Gibson has a 20-yard punt but drags it wide.

18mins: Wolfsburg have a right-wing corner that arrives on the head of Barzagli, eight yards out and completely unmarked. The ball's at a good height, but still he heads it high, ludicrously.

20mins: "My Dad got me a job as a hole digging stop and go board operator for the old Gas Board in Brighton back in the eighties," says Trevor Holden from Portugal. "Such was the dearth of news at the time that our road works made it into the Evening Argus." My dad once arranged for me to do work experience at a printing shop, but otherwise my stellar career has been all my own doing, I'm proud to say. Gibson has a punt from 30 yards, well over.

22mins: Another totally clear header, this time from Misimovic. United's marking is non-existent, but Wolfsburg lack the finishing prowess to punish them, so far.

26mins: They may be leaking chances to the others, but Grafite and Dzeko are both being kept pretty quiet. Dzeko has just dragged a right-foot shot wide of the near post when he should have been looking to pass or cross.

28mins: "In a reverse situation I once landed my dad a job shuttling supplies between dodgy medical companies all across Denmark," writes Mads Pihl. "He didn't take it."

29mins: If Nani was any more annoying he'd be an aubergine. He just pegged it down the left, Owen was unmarked at the back post and screaming for the ball, but Nani just performed some nutmegs until someone came along to take the ball off him.

31mins: Anderson slides the ball to Welbeck on the edge of the penalty area. The first touch is good, the second delightful, sending the ball skidding into the bottom corner of the net. He's offside, of course, though on this occasion it is at least close.

34mins: "In case my dad is reading this, I'd like you to make it clear that the drink-and-overdraft related comment from Jon Lever (9 mins) was not from the Jon Lever who grew up in Cornwall and now lives in Germany, but from another Jon Lever altogether," writes Jon Lever. "Oh, and greetings to the other Jon Lever."

39mins: Disappointing and 12 minutes late anyway scoreflash: Chelsea 2 (Didier Drogba 26) Apoel Nicosia 1

39mins: The Wolfsburg keeper runs out to clear from Welbeck but only finds Nani. The Portuguese performs not a single lollipop before sending a 50-yard shot wide. Not strictly on-topic, but I'll allow it because it's got a punchline, and we all love a punchline: "Re Trevor Holden's job as a hole digging Stop and Go board operator (20mins), in the '80s I had a mate at Uni who did the same job in summer in Ayr on Scotland's West Coast," writes John Thompson. "At the weekends he could be heard telling the ladies in the pub that he was working as an Ayr Traffic Controller!"

43mins: Slightly more relevant scoreline: Besiktas 0 CSKA Moscow 1 (Milos Krasic 41) – Wolfsburg have to win if that scoreline remains the same.

44mins: GOAL! Wolfsburg 0 Manchester United 1 (Owen) A good cross – yes, indeed – from Nani, Owen escapes from his marker and heads down and into the corner. Easy. No easier than the two headers Wolfsburg have already fluffed, but easy all the same.

Half-time: Nine seconds of stoppage time later, United head in a goal up and, miraculously, still in possession of a clean sheet. I'm off to find a toilet to vomit in. Back soon.

Half-time: I'm back, and while feeling rubbish I'm still better off than that toilet. The players are back out and about to kick off. Before I left Richard Keys was enthusing about Hans-Jorg Butt's penalty for Bayern against Juventus. Did anyone see it?

46mins: Peeep! They're off! Again!

46mins: "My father found me a job delivering the local free newspaper," writes Ben Dunn. "A paper-boy gap surprisingly opened up on the longest street in the world. Two-and-a-half bags full of local news describing petty crime and children's achievements to be delivered in one evening a week for £4. I threw half of them in a bin and quit before people complained. That was a happy time."

49mins: Grafite still hasn't done anything even slightly impressive for Wolfsburg, and has just given the ball away again. You sense the two goals just before half-time, one here and the other in Turkey, will either have drained or renewed their enthusiasm. It's looking a bit like the former.

51mins: Grafite is played in, but he's just offside and fluffs the finish anyway. "Back in the day my father ran various pubs, a small restaurant and, most impressively, a topless bar," writes Timo Bures. "When a job as a barman came up in the latter I immediately recognised it as a great opportunity to prepare myself for the working life that loomed after graduating from school. My dad must have thought the same cos I got the job. Truly not a bad job when you're 18..."

54mins: Wolfsburg are having a spell of dominance, though they keep running up against United's one-man defence, Patrice Evra, who seems to be clearing every cross. "What's all this whingeing about being sick, Mr Burnton?" says Martyn Bone, with some justification to be fair. "You need to model yourself after notorious man of steel Nemanja Vidic, who would never miss two games in a row with man flu? Eh? Oh."

56mins: GOAL! Wolfsburg 1 Man Utd 1 (Dzeko) A lovely cross from the left finds Dzeko, for a change, in the penalty area. His header is absolutely unstoppable and rockets unstoppably into the top corner. I don't speak German, but the stadium announcer seems to have a good time telling the crowd about it.

62mins: It's opened up now. Wolfsburg very much reinvigorated. "As an aside to this match, is it true Tony Pulis was naked when he "head butted" james beattie? Is it also true he then chased beattie into the parking lot and attacked his cadillac with a 9 iron?" Not as far as I know, but then I know very little. Anyone?

64mins: Wolfsburg increasingly in control. Grafite fluffs another good chance when he was offside anyway.

68mins: Wolfsburg's final ball has been too bad too often. Riether just got forward well, had time to look up and pick out a man, but just drilled in a low ball that could have been cleared by any of three United players before a teammate got near it.

71mins: Finally Grafite gets a shot on target, at the end of a smart break that started with the goalkeeper, but it's tipped over. "Re: Timo Bures (51mins), I too worked as a barman in my late teens, only the bar was more of your toothless, incontinent, are-you-looking-at-me-you-wee-little-student pub, not really what I needed to be seeing as an impressionable young man," writes Ben Dunn. "But I am now a master of hiding under a table at the merest hint of trouble. I can often be found cowering under my mahogany ikea dining table when my wife is agreived at my addiction to useless sports on TV." Mahogany? Ikea?

72mins: Grafite is taken off. He's been rubbish. Dejagah comes on.

74mins: United's first substitutions see Obertan replace Welbeck, and Valencia come on for Nani.

76mins: Dzeko conjures a low volley on target from a high ball played over his shoulder – impressive, but saveabhle. Paul Hayes, having informed me that Butt "made Buffon looked foolish" with his first-half penalty, says: "My mother once gave me my one and only P45. I did consider taking her to an industrial tribunal but thought I'd better not - still lhoping to inherit."

79mins: Ben Dunn has checked his dining table. It's pine. Carrick clears as Dejagah prepares to finish a low, left-wing cross.

83mins: GOAL! Wolfsburg 1 Man Utd 2 (Owen) With Wolfsburg having to score, the opportunity was always going to arrise to attack a distracted defence. Obertan is the creator, brilliantly (really!) tricking a couple of opponents to find space in the box and sliding a low ball to Owen, on the far post, whose job is pretty easy.

87mins: Wolfsburg now attacking in desperation, though as a German side facing Manchester United they'll know that it's still possible to turn a game around...

88mins: Michael Owen is played through but the goalkeeper comes out well to block his shot, and though it rebounds back to the United striker he can't control it.

89mins: Besiktas 1 (Deivson Bobo 86) CSKA Moscow 1 – as things stand, Wolfsburg only need one goal to go through.

90+1mins: Incredible miss! Another low cross from the left, Riether misses from four yards...

90+1mins: GOAL! Wolfsburg 1 Man Utd 3 (Owen) United break, Owen runs from the halfway line and he dinks the ball over the keeper as he goes to ground. Game over, but if Wolfsburg had only taken their chances...

90+2mins: Also, Chelsea 2 Apoel Nicosia 2 (Nenad Mirosavljevic 87)

90+something mins: Sorry I missed the final whistle, I was projectile vomiting into a recycling bin. Sorry also if my sudden-onset illness negatively affected by MBM performance. Anyway, good if slightly fortunate result for United, who top their group. Thanks for your help along the way. I'm off to find a doctor.