Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson was delighted with Federico Macheda's scoring debut on Sunday.

Having seen the youngster excel in training, he told reserve-team boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to offer Macheda the carrot of a place on the bench yesterday if he turned in a decent performance at Newcastle last Monday.

Macheda's response was a hat-trick, so Ferguson had no reason not to honour his word.

"I got Ole to tell him if he did well last Monday he might be on the bench yesterday," revealed Ferguson.

"He scored a hat-trick.

"That formed part of my decision to bring him on ahead of Danny Welbeck.

"To play under pressure in front of 76,000 is a big ask. But I have seen him in training and at reserve-team games and how he handles certain situations.

"But young players get challenged at this club. It was a late goal but for one like that you would wait until the very last kick because it was so good."

Ferguson must now try and keep Macheda's feet on the ground while at the same time developing the Italian youth team star into a member of his senior squad.

Fortunately for Macheda, he could not be in better hands given Ferguson has been in the position so many times before with players who are still an integral part of the Manchester United dressing room.

"Everyone likes to read nice things about themselves," he said.

"But you need a certain kind of attitude to deal with all the adulation.

"The good thing is there are plenty of examples of that with all the players we have had at Manchester United. It is part of their make-up."