Man United run the rule over Luis Alberto Suarez

Those who claim that there is an alliance between Sir Alex Ferguson and Sam Allardyce could have pointed to Saturday's late game between Manchester United and Blackburn Rovers, when the champions were unconvincing for much of the game yet still were able to cruise to a 2-0 victory.

Playing with a new central defensive core of Wes Brown and Jonny Evans in place of the injured Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic, United kept their first clean sheet in the Premier League for a month but they will be more stretched next weekend when they visit table-topping Chelsea. First up for the new partnership will be the visit of CSKA Moscow to Old Trafford tomorrow night in the Champions League.

"A lot has been made about Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic being out, but when you have the back-up of Jonny Evans and Wes Brown, it can't be bad," Ferguson said after the game. "If you take Ferdinand and Vidic out then there aren’t many partnerships in the Premier League better than Brown and Evans. We sent Vidic to a specialist [last week] and hopefully he’s going to be all right [for Chelsea]. Rio is having treatment and Ryan Giggs, too. Neither will make Tuesday and we have a fight on our hands to have them ready for Chelsea on Sunday."

Although the first half display against Blackburn was somewhat insipid, the Scottish manager will have been a lot happier with the attacking edge to his side, with the much-maligned Bulgarian striker Dimitar Berbatov scoring after having been denied four times earlier on. Wayne Rooney returned to form with a screaming volley on 87 minutes, substitute Michael Owen scuffed a good chance in the final minutes, and Gabriel Obertan almost capped a decent Premier League debut with a goal.

However, Sunday papers were full of stories suggesting that Ferguson is beginning to scour Europe for attacking players to bid for in the January transfer window. Sir Alex still has tens of millions of pounds at his disposal left over from the Cristiano Ronaldo transfer to Real Madridand is reported to be interested in the Spanish pair David Villa and Valencia team-mate David Silva, who would set back the Old Trafford club £40m for a joint bid.

Manchester United are also running the rule over Ajax Amsterdam's Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez, an exciting 22-year-old who has scored 55 times in 76 games at the Dutch club. The player could cost £35m and is also apparently interesting Manchester City.