Darren Fletcher and Sir Alex Ferguson on Manchester United’s 6-1 Loss to City

After suffering a humiliating 6-1 loss to bitter inner-city rivals Manchester United, Darren Fletcher made himself heard United’s locker room.

Fletcher also admitted that the loss not only hurt the fans, but the players.

“We realise how much this result has hurt the fans and how they’ll go into work on Monday and get a lot of stick, but the players are hurting just as much. We live in the city too and we’re going to have to deal with it as well,” the Scottish international told MUTV.

“No-one wants to lose by the margin we did today, but you’ve always got to look at positives and say you can lose by that score or lose 1-0 and it’s still the same amount of points [to lose].

“I said to the lads in the dressing room afterwards that we need to remember how it feels to lose a game like this, but to remember that no medals are handed out now.

“There’s still a long way to go in the season. It’s a bad result, but by no means is the league over. We’ve got to respond and win our next game.”

With United scheduled to take on Aldershot Town at The EBB Stadium at the Recreation Ground in round four of the Carling Cup, the Red Devils have no time to dwell on their nightmare performance in the Manchester derby.

It doesn’t get any easier for the Premier League champions, who will travel to Goodison Park at the weekend to take on a resilient Everton side.

My instincts are telling me that Sir Alex Ferguson will light a fire in United.

Surely he can get the Red Devils back on track. After all, he is the greatest football manager of all-time, right?

Here’s what the Scottish boss told Sky Sports following United’s loss to City:

“It was our worst ever day,” said Fergie.

“It’s the worst result in my  history, ever. Even as a player I don’t think I ever lost 6-1.

“I can’t believe the scoreline. The first goal was a blow for sure but it was  retrievable at 1-0.

“The sending off was a killer for us. We kept attacking when we went 4-1 down  and we should have just said: ‘We’ve had our day.”

“We just kept attacking. They were attacking three versus two. It was crazy football.

“I thought with the experience we’ve got – Rio Ferdinand, Patrice Evra – they  would (defend more) but we just kept attacking. Sometimes there has to be common  sense about it. It was a bad day.”

But the Red Devils manager promised that his side will bounce back.

“We will react, no question about that. It’s a perfect result for us to react  to because there is a lot of embarrassment in the dressing room and that will  make an impact.

“We’ll come back. By January we’ll be okay. We usually get the show on the  road in the second half of the season and that will have to be the case.

“We’ve played all the teams around us and they have all to play each other so  the second half of the season is important to us now.”

It’s hard to imagine United collapsing after this loss. They’re still second in the league and could see themselves back at the top of the table with a good run in form.

Surely Mario Balotelli and company, I mean Kompany, will have something to say about that, literally.