Fergie ready to wield axe

A furious Sir Alex Ferguson is ready to axe seven players who did duty in Manchester United’s shock FA Cup loss to Leeds on Sunday. United play archrivals Manchester City in a Carling Cup semi-final on Wednesday. The Red Devils crashed out of the world’s oldest cup competition after going down 1-0 at Old Trafford to a club two divisions below them. Dimitar Berbatov and Gary Neville look set to be dropped, while Anderson, Gabriel Obertan, Danny Welbeck, Darron Gibson and Fabio da Silva also look set for bench duty – or worse. "We will start to think a little bit differently with our selection for Wednesday,” said United assistant manager Mike Phelan on Monday. "I don't think we did ourselves justice against Leeds in certain departments of the field. We had players out there who play for Manchester United and they did not perform as expected of them."