Ben Foster has been promised the Manchester United goalkeeping berth for Saturday’s Premier League clash with Sunderland.

Foster came in for a torrent of abuse following his woeful performance in the 4-3 win over Manchester City earlier this month.

At the time, there was plenty of speculation Alex Ferguson would axe the former Watford keeper in favour of Poland international Tomasz Kuszczak, who performed creditably on his first appearance of the season against Wolves in the Carling Cup.

Instead, Ferguson stood by his man and was rewarded with a clean sheet at Stoke last weekend. Yet Kuszczak was in goal for last night’s 2-1 win over German champions Wolfsburg, which led to more speculation that Foster was about to be dumped.

However, while the keeper was denied an opportunity to impress watching England coach Fabio Capello, he will get another chance this weekend, as Capello is due back at Old Trafford 24 hours before he names his squad for the World Cup double header against the Ukraine and Belarus.

“Tomasz Kuszczak produced a very good performance against Wolves last week and we felt he deserved to play another game,” said Ferguson. “It wasn’t going to be last Saturday though because we had to give Ben some support after that difficult game against Manchester City.

“It was a good opportunity for us to play Tomasz tonight but Ben will play on Saturday.”

Meanwhile, Ferguson feels last night’s matchwinner Michael Carrick is beginning to find his feet after a customary slow start to the season.

So sporadically has Carrick been used it was felt the former Tottenham man had fallen foul of Ferguson for some reason.

But the midfielder produced his best performance of the season at Old Trafford, capping a fine performance by curling home the winner 12 minutes from time.

“It won’t do Michael any harm to score,” said Ferguson. “That applies to all players but he really did enjoy himself. We think he is generally slow to start the season for us.

“It has been that way since he came to the club. It is normally around October when he starts to get into his stride and we are seeing that again.”