Man United hoping to send Federico Macheda out on loan

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has explained why he would like exciting striker Federico Macheda to join another club on loan for the rest of the season.

The United boss is hoping the 19-year-old forward will be able to join another Premier League club until the end of the season.

Danny Welbeck has thrived during his short spell on loan at Sunderland and Ferguson believes a similar stint away from Old Trafford could benefit Macheda.

“I had a chat with Federico and explained the Welbeck situation,” said Ferguson. “It can pan out exactly the same for him. It would be the same thing, going to a club, getting that experience for six months and coming back to us a better player.

“The reason we let Danny Welbeck and Mame Biram Diouf go was that they are young and they need games. And with Welbeck it has proved the point that through consistent, regular football, you can progress dramatically.

“Okay, in the previous two years he played in two cup finals and an FA Cup semi-final. But in a consistent nature he didn’t have enough football to produce the kind of performances we are seeing now.

The Manchester United manager concluded: “He has been fantastic for Sunderland and must eventually get in the England squad and that is exactly what we wanted.”

Meanwhile, Sir Alex admitted he may be forced to recall Tom Cleverly from Wigan Athletic. He said: “Tom has done excellently as well but the agreement with him was always that we would review it in January.

“I have a fantastic relationship with Wigan so I have not discussed it any further than that. The only problem is that we have lost Park Ji-Sung to the Asia Cup for the whole of January and I don’t have Antonio Valencia back until the end of February, so we are a bit light in that respect in terms of wide positions.”