Manchester United have never beaten Spanish opposition in Spain and, if they are to end that record in Galicia tonight, they must do so without Juan Sebastian Veron. A recurrence of his heel injury has ruled the Argentinian out of both legs of a treacherous quarter-final against Deportivo La Coruna, although Sir Alex Ferguson's initial disappointment will be offset by its removing arguably his biggest selection dilemma of the season.

Veron will be out for at least a fortnight and sees a specialist today, having aggravated the injury playing for Argentina last week. But he was scarcely missed in Saturday's 4-3 win at Leeds and, with Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt at their best again, Ferguson may have relegated the £28.1m player to the bench anyway.

Now he must decide whether to rely on Butt's reliability in midfield, deploying a containing policy with five across the middle, or be more adventurous by selecting Ole Gunnar Solskjaer alongside Ruud van Nistelrooy in a conventional 4-4-2.

David Beckham sat out yesterday's training session at the Riazor Stadium as a precaution, having sustained a badly bruised foot in training for England's friendly against Italy last week, but is not a serious doubt.

After taking the session Ferguson leaned towards the more defensive approach, with an eye on the return at Old Trafford a week tomorrow. "I want us to be tighter than against Leeds," he said. "We don't need to chase the game."

United know from their quarter-final defeats against Monaco in 1998 and Real Madrid in 2000 that a scoreless draw in the away leg is not often as good a result as it seems.

"I don't like nil-nils," said Ferguson. "Deportivo can score away from home, so we may need to score here. But I think we will, I really do."

Despite losing twice to the Spaniards this season Ferguson was upbeat about his side's chances of progressing beyond the stage where they have faltered in the last two seasons.

"We have been labelled the biggest team in the world and now it is up to us to prove it," he said. "To be remembered as a great team you have to be successful in the European Cup over and over again."

But it might pay United not to be presumptuous. Ferguson's revelation that he had done more research than for any other opponents shows how highly he regards Deportivo.

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