Fergie has no pitch worries

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson is not concerned about playing on an artificial pitch against CSKA Moscow in the UEFA Champions League.

The Premier League champions face CSKA on Wednesday evening and the match at the Luzhniki Stadium will take place on an artificial surface.

England lost to Russia in a Euro 2008 qualifier on the surface, while Aston Villa boss Martin O'Neill was critical of the pitch after his side lost to CSKA in the Uefa Cup last season.

However, Ferguson is not worried about the quality of the pitch and is drawing on past experience of playing on artificial surfaces.

"I have no issues with the pitch in Moscow," said Ferguson. "When Luton and QPR had them all those years ago we always played well on them.

"We had a great record at those artificial pitches and that was when the artificial pitches weren't as good. The one in Moscow has a far better covering on it.

"I watched CSKA's previous Champions League game and I didn't see any issue with it at all. It is a passing surface and we have good passers in our side."

United head to Moscow without five senior players through injury and Ferguson is expecting a stiff test against the 2005 Uefa Cup winners.

He added: "They are a very young team and they deserved to win their game against Besiktas, so it should be a good game.

"But we're in a strong position ourselves after winning our opening two games and, if we can navigate the back-to-back games against CSKA, we're through, I think.

"The Champions League for a few years now has had a tremendous amount of quality in it. I think the Russian teams in particular have improved a lot in the last few years thanks to big investment.

"There are a lot of Brazilian players in Russia now. So you can expect a difficult game there and it's a surface which we're not used to playing on."