Bitter medicine a valuable cure for Utd: Ferguson

Alex Ferguson claims his Manchester United stars will prove they have learned a painful lesson when they attempt to recover from the humiliating home defeat to Liverpool.

The veteran United manager was stunned by the 4-1 capitulation at Old Trafford which has given both Liverpool and Chelsea a glimmer of hope in the title race.

Ferguson has admitted that the result could be explained by complacency creeping into his squad after their remarkable run and defensive performances that looked to have as good as secured the league title for the defending champions.

Liverpool shattered the myth about United?s invincibility in emphatic fashion and Ferguson insists that, starting with the game against Fulham on Saturday, they will be back to the ruthless best that gave them such an impressive lead at the top of the Premiership.

“For weeks we had to listen to a lot of eulogies and compliments about how great this team of ours was,” he said. “I never got carried away with it and the point I was trying to get across was, it’s not affecting me, I hope it’s not affecting anyone else!

“Everybody likes to read good things about themselves in the papers, especially young players, they like to think they’re the bees’ knees all the time.

“I kept deflecting that, saying how tough this league was and this is a reminder. Football can come back and bite you, we’ve had that many times.

“The thing about it is it is hard to defend a 4-1 defeat. You have to be absolutely clear about the reasons why, and we are quite clear about it. I think it was self-inflicted and the point has been made about that. There were mistakes we don?t expect our players to make.

“In a way that defeat can help us. They realise there is a lot of work to be done to win the league, as has been shown time and time again.

“We’ve had to go to the last game on three or four occasions to win the league so now we’re in the position of saying, let’s put the show back on the road again.”

Much has been made of the psychological boost that Chelsea and, especially, Liverpool will have enjoyed in the wake of one of the most extraordinary results in recent Premiership history.

But Ferguson, with the experience of two decades in charge of one of the world?s leading clubs, is interested only in how his own team responds in the wake of the upset.

“We will work on our own games, try and win all our own remaining games, that?s the better way to do it,” he said. “We can?t do anything about Chelsea?s and Liverpool?s performances, that?s in their own hands.

“But we can do something about our own performances and, hopefully, we will do that.

“This is one of those situations you get in football but the good thing is, I?m used to it, quite a few of the players are used to it.

“It doesn?t make the job any easier but there are a lot of ways of using a defeat like that, taking advantage of it. The important thing is having players you trust and players with the capabilities to do something about it. I?m happy we have that.”

Gary Neville is back in the Manchester United squad after recovering from injury while Brazilian full-back Rafael Da Silva will return to training next week. Nemanja Vidic misses the trip to Fulham as a result of the red card he received against Liverpool. Young centreback Jonny Evans is expected to deputise.