Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson has branded journalists idiots for doubting the ability of his young players.

United's kids were criticised after their Champions League defeat to Besiktas last week.

Opportunities were given to six players under the age of 22: Danny Welbeck (then 18), Federico Macheda (18), Rafael (19), Gabriel Obertan (20), Anderson (21) and Darron Gibson (22).

"It will be the same players that played on Wednesday," Ferguson said of his team for Tuesday's visit of Harry Redknapp's side. "Their future is well marked out, I think."

The press were clearly unimpressed, but Sir Alex took particular exception to one report.

"One journalist wrote, 'there's no future for these players, no tomorrow for them'," Sir Alex said incredulously. "What an idiot. I can't believe that. It's unbelievable. When Beckham, Butt, Scholes and all those lads played in 1996, they were 22 years of age - three years ahead of these players. So that kind of reaction is amazing, isn't it?

"Of course they will grow from that experience. I was confident of playing them, and they had every right to play. They will play on Tuesday, too."

Ferguson added: "The number of young players we have is stacking up, they need to be challenged. I thought they did OK and I didn't think they deserved that kind of criticism. But the same journalists will be wanting articles from them when they are stars, going cap-in-hand, begging them for interviews in a few years' time - mark my words on that. They'll be hypocritical and say, 'I've always said you were going to be a wonderful player'. What a world we live in.

"The thing is, Alan Hansen made comments in front of millions of people on TV and gets slaughtered for it, the journalist I mentioned writes that and it gets buried in the middle of a newspaper article and gets off with it. He should be sacked!"