Sir Alex Ferguson expects Man Utd to start surge up Premier
League against Bolton
Despite a lacklustre start to the season, Sir Alex Ferguson is
confident that within a month Manchester United will be firmly
entrenched in the top four with Liverpool, Chelsea and
Arsenal.
The Manchester United manager can point to several reasons why the
champions have yet to feature even in the top half of the table.
They have played one fewer match than everybody else bar Fulham;
they have been disrupted by injuries and an awkward beginning to
the season. Ferguson could have pointed out that the champions of
Spain and Germany - Real Madrid and Bayern Munich - have also begun
uncertainly.
Tomorrow's Premier League encounter with Bolton at Old Trafford is
one of a string of winnable fixtures - their subsequent home games
see United face West Brom, West Ham, Hull and Stoke.
"The form of the team is starting to come right and by October we
will be back to normal," Ferguson said today. "We have seen some
encouraging signs. The football in the first half against Chelsea
was good; the football we played on Tuesday against Middlesbrough
was excellent.
"The win over Middlesbrough (in the Carling Cup) will send us on
our way. It was a tough start with three away games on the trot but
we have exactly the same number of points as we did at this stage
of last season.
"Then, we drew with Portsmouth, this time we beat them. Last season
we beat Liverpool and this time we have lost to them. We took a
point at Chelsea, where we lost last season. Our form has not been
as incisive as I would have liked but, starting tomorrow, I would
expect it to improve."
In the wake of the seven yellow cards dished out to his players
during last Sunday's 1-1 draw with Chelsea, Ferguson argued there
was no problem with his players' discipline. "There was not one bad
tackle at Stamford Bridge and we always try to play our brand of
football," he said, though he did acknowledge that certain players
such as Gary Neville, Owen Hargreaves, Ji-Sung Park and Dimitar
Berbatov all lacked match fitness which showed in the second
half.
Edwin van der Sar, who was injured at Chelsea, will return in goal
against Bolton while Rodrigo Possebon is making a good recovery
from the abysmal tackle from Emanuel Pogatetz that felled him in
United's 3-1 Carling Cup win on Tuesday night. The Brazilian
midfielder suffered only a gashed leg.
"We are delighted he is not more serious," Ferguson said. "At the
time, I feared the worst for the kid. You saw the reaction from
Nani - he turned away in horror. You saw the same reaction from the
Arsenal players when Eduardo was injured and it was the same 10
years ago when David Busst broke his leg at Old Trafford when he
was here with Coventry.
"You feared a repetition, you really did. There's not even ligament
damage just a gash. It went into the bone we had to keep him in
hospital because of the risk of infection and the doctors couldn't
close the wound. But compared to what he could have suffered, I am
delighted for the boy."
geovani