Ryan Giggs will not play in the Carling Cup final against the same team that he broke his arm against on Wednesday night.

Giggs went into a challenge strongly against another Aston Villa player and immediately went down clutching his arm in pain. X-rays later showed the injury to be a break and United’s veteran will not be able to play a part in what would have been his umpteenth final.

This will be very bad news to a United side, which continue their latest spell through the transition of the current team. The news has created a gap for someone to come in and pull all of the strings in the middle of the United midfield.

Manchester United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, said: “In terms of preparing for a European tie, we are pleased to have a free weekend. AC Milan are playing on Friday night. That is the kind of help European teams get from their countries. We don’t get that here.”

“By fortune, we don’t have a game on Saturday because we are out of the FA Cup and we are going to take full advantage of it. The players will have a couple of days off because they have worked hard and we will start again on Saturday.”

United goalkepper, Edwin Van Der Saar, is not worried that Giggs’ injury will affect United’s title push. He added: “There is a little bit of a gap between us but Arsenal are still around. But really, we are not looking to anyone else. We will concentrate on ourselves.”

The reason Giggs being injured will be such a blow to United is because he is the calmest and most experienced player in the side. It is important that Ferguson’s men can find someone else quickly, who will fill in the gap and do the same job that Giggs does every week.

Giggs will also be a big miss for United’s up and coming Champions League bout against AC Milan. The match is sure to be one, which United will need all of their experienced players for.

The Italian giants will not be brushed aside easily and have a number of players who could hurt United. However, Ferguson will see the game as a chance for someone to walk in and make Giggs’ place in the team their own.

The main point is that this is a United side, which have gone through their rough spell of the year and are still fighting on a number of fronts for even more silverware than they can currently lay claim to.

There is enough in the squad for the current Premier League champions to be able to compensate and as soon as Giggs recovers from this injury blow, he will no doubt be instrumental in making sure United see through the progression of the current team.

Giggs is old and experienced enough to know how to deal with this injury and make sure that he comes back stronger from it.

Spurs romped to victory in their third round Carling Cup match against Preston North End, thanks to a hat trick from Peter Crouch. Tottenham looked in sparkling form and were never threatened during the match as they easily progressed to the next round.

Before the game, Spurs manager, Harry Redknapp, was calling for his side to show some backbone after two heavy recent defeats against Manchester United and Chelsea. Well they showed this in abundance against Preston as the gulf in class between the two sides was huge.

Redknapp said: “It was a good hat-trick. Robbie took his goal well. It [deciding which strikers to start] is a nice problem to have. This was a game a lot of people looked at and had it down as a potential shock.”

“But I thought we were dangerous and sharp going forward. That said, this was the type of game we would have lost 12 months ago. We’ve just had two defeats and we certainly didn’t want to be facing Burnley on Saturday on the back of three defeats.”

Spurs are still very much a team in progression. It is growing more clear as each game passes that Spurs are still some way behind the top teams in particular areas. The real test is reducing the gap in consistency between performances such as this and the ones that see them lose 3-1 to a Manchester United side that play for half an hour with only ten men.

Alan Irvine, the Preston boss, added: “Tottenham were very good going forward and certainly caused us problems. They showed the difference between the Premier League and the Championship. We could have taken the lead before they scored and we could have equalised when we were 1-0 down.”

“The scoreline gives an impression we were played off the pitch but I thought there were some good points to take from the game.”

Ironically this could have been the perfect game at the perfect time for this Spurs side. They were able to go into a match as the heavy favourites and were able to give a number of their first choice players a run out in a match that they were always going to win.

The next test for them will be how they perform in their next Premier League game against Burnley, who have shown no signs at all that they are out of their depth at this level.