It is the £90 million conundrum that most managers would love to have — just who should Sir Alex Ferguson start up front for Manchester United? After watching Carlos Tévez plunder his first hat-trick in English football during United’s Carling Cup quarter-final victory at home to Blackburn Rovers on Wednesday, Ferguson conceded that the Argentina forward had “definitely made my job more difficult”.

But will Tévez’s exploits be enough to earn him a starting place against Sunderland at Old Trafford in the Barclays Premier League tomorrow evening or will he find himself back on the substitutes’ bench that he has become accustomed to keeping warm this season?

While Sunderland wrestle with altogether different problems as they contend with the wreckage left by Roy Keane’s departure as manager, Ferguson must decide whether to stick with his more tried and tested alliance of Wayne Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov or drop one in favour of accommodating Tévez, who, after a frustrating start to the season, finally hit the high notes against Blackburn. For, as Tévez has discovered to his cost this season, three into two simply does not go.

Ferguson has started with all three strikers in only one match this season and since watching that backfire as United slipped to a 2-1 league defeat by Liverpool at Anfield in September, it is not a tactic he has repeated, however tempting it might have been.

In the three subsequent European and league games, Ferguson experimented with three different partnerships — Rooney and Tévez against Villarreal at Old Trafford, Berbatov and Rooney away to Chelsea and Tévez and Berbatov at home to Bolton Wanderers — but has appeared to settle primarily on using Rooney and Berbatov in tandem, with Tévez coming off the bench.

Of the 20 matches United have played in all competitions since Berbatov’s £30.75 million arrival from Tottenham Hotspur, the Bulgarian and Rooney have started up front alone in nine of them, scoring ten times between them.

Tévez has partnered Rooney alone only twice in that time and Berbatov alone three times and, tellingly, the Argentinian has failed to score in any of those matches, with only one goal managed by either partner, Berbatov scoring in the 5-0 win at home to Stoke City last month. The statistics, then, would appear to support Ferguson’s first choice of Rooney and Berbatov, although the United manager has never been one to take account of numbers alone.

Ferguson will always attempt to gauge the mood and confidence of his players and having seen Tévez destroy Blackburn, he may find it difficult to leave the player out, especially against a managerless Sunderland team who have lost five of their past six league games.

Rooney and Tévez dovetailed well enough last season — so much so that the club won the European Cup and Premier League — but given that their games are similar, Ferguson may decide to drop the £27 million England forward, as opposed to Berbatov, if he decides to start with Tévez.

Tévez’s two-year loan deal expires at the end of the season, but United remain hopeful of securing his services permanently in a deal that could be worth up to £32 million.

Jonny Evans knows only too well the frustrations inherent with sitting on the sidelines, waiting for an opportunity to come along.

Evans may have less reason to be frustrated than Tévez, a world-renowned name who would walk into most teams in Europe, but like the Argentinian, the United central defender has had his path to the first team blocked at the other end of the pitch by Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic. Still, he is convinced that Tévez’s chance will come if he keeps turning in performances such as the one he produced against Blackburn. “The goals were the best way for Carlos to respond,” Evans, 20, said. “He is a real fighter.

“The fans know what Carlos is all about. He works hard every time he is on the pitch and it will do him good to get his name on the scoresheet. No matter what is happening, his workrate is phenomenal, which is great for the team.”

Missing the target

None of Manchester United’s main three centre forwards has a formidable scoring rate in the Barclays Premier League this season. Wayne Rooney has four goals and Dimitar Berbatov, two, both from the equivalent of 11 full games, while Carlos Tévez has one from the equivalent of six complete matches.