On the face of it, Bradford City and Manchester United do not have too much in common.

City are desperately fighting to retain their Premiership status and can only dream of the riches which continue to flood into the Old Trafford coffers.

Success to Paul Jewell and his side will be finishing fourth from bottom and ensuring that Valley Parade hosts at least another season of top-flight football.

Manchester United, in contrast, recently became the first club to be valued at £1 billion on the Stock Exchange and are the current Premiership, European Cup and FA Cup holders.

Sir Alex Ferguson's side also look a good bet to retain the two trophies they chose to defend this season and anything less will be seen as failure.

However, one area in which both sides have shared common ground is the manner in which their seasons have been disrupted by goalkeeping problems.

City have been forced to use four goalkeepers this term while three have figured in United's title defence which is a far from ideal position.

The Bantams' problems have been well documented with Gary Walsh and Matt Clarke both in sensational form only to be cut down by injury.

Aidan Davison played his fifth game of the season at Coventry last weekend and if Clarke fails to recover, he will face the might of Manchester United tomorrow.

Neville Southall has also made one appearance this season after a series of events left City without cover for the derby clash with Leeds United.

Meanwhile, over the Pennines at Old Trafford the goalkeeping situation has been a major talking point of United's season. The moment Peter Schmeichel announced he was quitting Manchester at the end of last season, Ferguson knew he would have trouble filling the Great Dane's gloves.

Mark Bosnich was brought in from Aston Villa for his second spell at United and was expected to hold on to the goalkeeper's jersey for the season.

However after some ordinary performances in early season, Ferguson splashed out £4.5 million on Inter Milan's Massimo Taibi.

He soon proved to be fallible as well with a spectacular blunder in the clash with Southampton something no one will ever forget.

Taibi allowed a tame 25-yard shot from Matt Le Tissier to slip through his legs to help the Saints earn a surprise point in a 3-3 draw.

Soon after, Ferguson turned to Schmeichel's understudy Raimond van der Gouw but even the normally reliable Dutchman made a huge mistake in the Champions League victory in Bordeaux.

Bosnich has been back in the side since then but even he was dropped four weeks ago after poor kicks allowed Wimbledon to snatch a point in a 2-2 draw.

In fact, Ferguson has chopped and changed his keepers so much that no one can be certain who will play at Valley Parade tomorrow.

However both clubs will be hoping that their keeper troubles will ease in the final few weeks of the campaign and help City and United go on and achieve their goals for the season.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.