United may have drawn the first two league games of the season
but Sir Alex insists it's no cause for alarm.
"Im looking at the performances of the team in the first two games
and saying to my players, Well done," the boss said at Friday's
press conference.
"Were dropping points and thats disappointing and frustrating
because the performance levels have been very good. The important
thing is to be patient now. The situation is recoverable, of
course."
United go into Sunday's Manchester derby without Cristiano Ronaldo,
who was sent off at Fratton Park, but Sir Alex was pleased the Reds
left Portsmouth with a clean bill of health. Unfortunately,
however, none of the long-term injured players have recovered
sufficiently to resume match play.
Louis Saha has been training with the first-team squad but is
unlikely to take part on Sunday, while new signing Anderson is
struggling with a hamstring strain. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's knee is
still troubling the Norwegian and Wayne Rooney could be out for two
months after breaking a bone in his foot last weekend. That said,
not all the news is bad.
"Owen Hargreaves is still feeling the problem of tendonitis in his
knee but he is doing some bits of training, which is encouraging,"
the boss added. "Gary Neville has also been doing bits of training
but he's not really near [to playing on Sunday]."