Alex Ferguson is facing a race against time to bring in a midfield reinforcement after his injury-ravaged Manchester United side suffered two more body blows on their way to booking a Carling Cup final meeting with Wigan next month.

United's 2-1 win over Blackburn confirmed their presence at the Millennium Stadium on February 26th but Ferguson's immediate attention will be focussed on attempting to bring in some cover.

With Paul Scholes out for the season, John O'Shea absent for six weeks and Cristiano Ronaldo and Park Ji-sung ruled out of Wednesday's Old Trafford triumph through suspension and injury respectively, Ferguson then lost Ryan Giggs to a hamstring problem after just 12 minutes.

To make matters worse his replacement Alan Smith picked up a booking that will rule him out of next Wednesday's Premiership encounter with Blackburn at Ewood Park.

It has already been rumoured in Italy that Ferguson will attempt to land Swiss international Johann Vogel from AC Milan but with the transfer window closing in less than a week's time, the United chief knows time is not on his side.

"We are exhausting our knowledge of central midfielders in Europe, particularly one we can get on loan," revealed Ferguson. "It is impossible really because there is only a week left which is not a lot of time to start negotiating fees and things but we could just run out of time.

"We know it is going to be difficult but ideally we would like to bring someone in and we are trying our best. The problem is we have to be sure. There is no point just bringing someone in for the sake of it. We have to get someone who can add to the squad because it is squad numbers we are light on in midfield."

Ferguson did not confirm the extent of Giggs' injury but said the Welshman quickly decided there was no point continuing.

Although Giggs might have sat out Sunday's FA Cup tie at Wolves anyway as Ronaldo will return from his three-match ban, any lengthy absence will be devastating to the United boss, who confirmed Park will start training again tomorrow after a recent knee problem.

"We wanted Ryan to be our leader in midfield on Wednesday because we only had two young lads alongside him in Darren Fletcher and Kieran Richardson," he said. "But the injury put paid to that, which is unfortunate."