Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson has admitted his side now face an uphill task to beat Chelsea in the race for the Premier League title after a disappointing 0-0 at Blackburn yesterday.
Ferguson’s men missed a number of chances to win the game at Ewood Park and are now a point behind Chelsea having played a game more.
The result was the culmination of a bad spell for United who lost to Chelsea last weekend and were knocked out of the Champions League on Wednesday.
Talking about the title race Ferguson said the result at Blackburn was “a blow” that would make it “really difficult to win the league now”. The Scotsman even went as far to say the title has “slipped away” from his side and Chelsea’s Premier League odds do make them strong odds on favourites to win the title.
Still, talking up his opponents may well be a play from Ferguson to file the pressure on Carlo Ancelotti’s team. United are still only one point behind the current leaders and it would only take one negative result for Chelsea to throw things wide open again.
Ferguson carried on his ‘Chelsea have more or less won it’ attitude by saying that they have “an easy game” against Bolton on Tuesday. The Manchester United manager clearly expects the Blues to pick up three points in that game and go four points clear.
As for his own side’s most recent game, Ferguson admits that they should have found the back of the net at least once. He said “we had chances in the game”, “dominated possession” and “should have done better” in terms of an end product.
However, Manchester United will no doubt carry on fighting and hope Chelsea slip up again at some stage. In the mean time, Ferguson’s team take on fierce rivals Manchester City at Eastlands on Saturday, and this will be the main focus of attention for the next week or so.
Fullback Wes Brown could be back in contention for that game, and he will be looking to prove his fitness ahead of the Football World Cup.
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I think Man Utds season could get worse yet. They have to play an in form City team next weekend and it looks like City will be well up for that too. Its now become obvious the Utd have missed both Ronaldo and Tevez. Yes Rooney got them so far this season but without him they really struggle. Its plain to see Berbatove doesnt cut it as a striker at Utd either. We have to accept his flair and skill but the way he plays the game is not suited to Man Utd. If you are going to have flair and skill at Man Utd you also need to carry it off with confidence and arrogance a la Cantona and to a degree Ronaldo. You can see from his body language Berbatov is low on confidence and he doesnt have the arrogance to shrug it off. Best thing Fergie can do now is forget about the rest of this season, sit and enjoy the World Cup and then build a new squad for the new season. Letting Berbatov go and bringing in a world class striker will be top of the agenda. But as we all know top class strikers are few and far between and the ones that are available are ridiculously overpriced. I think it would be a mistake to bring in Benzema as it has been touted in the last week or so, a player that hasnt suceeded at Real Madrid wont suceed at Man Utd. Dzecko is he good enough yet and he would be overpriced? And Villa at Valencia, too old and too much? Probably.