Sir Alex Ferguson has set Manchester United a straightforward task against AS Roma tomorrow night - to score an away goal.

Ferguson highlighted Roma’s triumph over Lyons as the shock of the Champions League first knockout round.

As the United manager’s dark horses for the competition, Lyons appeared to have done the hard work by claiming a goalless draw in the Italian capital.

However, on home soil, Gerard Houllier’s men found it impossible to find a way through Roma’s defence and eventually slipped to a two-goal defeat, providing Ferguson with fuel for his pre-match team talk.

“We need to score,” he said. “A goalless draw is a dangerous scoreline. Lyons were the better team in Rome but you saw what happened in France.”

Twice in recent years, against Monaco in1998, and Real Madrid in 2000, United have been knocked out at Old Trafford after goalless draws away from home.

Surprisingly, for a side who have scored 74 goals in 31 league games this season, United have not found it easy to hit the net in Europe and Wayne Rooney is yet to score in a Champions League game since his memorable debut hat-trick against Fenerbahce in September 2004.

Yet, Rooney’s 17-game barren streak is eclipsed by that of Cristiano Ronaldo, who has not scored for United on the biggest stage.

“I don’t know why the pair of them have not scored in the Champions League,” Ferguson said. “We have not scored a lot of goals in Europe over the last two years at all, which is obviously a factor.

“Maybe it is just a case of them adapting to European football because they are both young players.

“But I don’t have an issue with either of them. Wayne’s contribution has been very good, while I believe Cristiano is the best player in the world just now.”

Louis Saha and Darren Fletcher are the surprise inclusions in the United squad, but Park Ji-Sung and Patrice Evra miss out.

Saha and Fletcher have been missing for five weeks with hamstring and ankle injuries respectively and were expected to play for the reserves against Blackburn Rovers on Thursday. Instead, Ferguson called them into a 19-man party as the club aim to reach the semi-finals for the first time since 2002.

Evra has not recovered from a hamstring injury and his absence leaves them with only four recognised defenders in Rio Ferdinand, Wes Brown, Gabriel Heinze and John O'Shea, after Nemanja Vidic joined Gary Neville and Mikael Silvestre on the injury list with a broken collarbone.

South Korea midfielder Park has been ruled out after picking up a knee injury on Saturday against Blackburn.

Team (from): Van der Sar, Kuszczak, Heaton, O'Shea, Brown, Ferdinand, Heinze, Ronaldo, Scholes, Carrick, Fletcher, Eagles, Giggs, Richardson, Rooney, Saha, Solskjaer, Smith, Dong.

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