Ferdinand´s England captaincy ´will boost United´

Sir Alex Ferguson believes Manchester United can benefit from Fabio Capello’s decision to make Rio Ferdinand the new England captain.

Ferdinand served the second game of his four-match suspension as United returned to the top of the table with a 5-0 victory over Portsmouth.

The defender, 31, was watching from the stands just 24 hours after taking the England skipper’s armband from John Terry, who was stripped of the captaincy by Capello on Friday following allegations about his private life.

Ferguson admits he is proud that a United player will captain England at the World Cup in South Africa later this year and hopes the accolade has a positive effect on Ferdinand’s performances during the Premier League title run-in.

He said: “We’re pleased for him and it’s great for Manchester United to have one of our players captaining his country.

“Over the years we’ve had Gary, Bobby Charlton and Bryan Robson for 60-odd games or something so we?re very proud of that.”

Ferguson was happy with the patient display of his team against Avram Grant’s strugglers.

United took until the 40th minute to make the breakthrough but Ferguson thinks that his team, who have dropped just two points against bottom-half teams, were rewarded for their calm approach.

He added: “We had a lot of pressure and possession of the ball but we were patient enough and that?s important when teams come and sit in the way they did here.

“Portsmouth were there to make it difficult but we got the goal just before half time and it was a bit fortunate with the second one but that opened the game for us in the second half and it was a good performance.”

Ferguson admits he is willing Arsenal to take points off Chelsea when the two London teams meet at Stamford Bridge on Sunday.

The United manager added: “I don’t know if I’ll watch it or not because I’m going up to Glasgow but I’ll be thinking about it.”

Grant insists that Portsmouth, who face a winding up order, will continue to fight despite their position looking more and more dangerous.

The club are working under their fourth set of owners of the season and are seven points from safety at the bottom of the Premier League.

But the former Chelsea manager is hoping that the Fratton Park club have turned a corner.

He said: “We need to do our job even if it feels like it is going against us.

“I hope that the club will be more stable now. It was almost impossible in the last matches with all the mess around the club and uncertainty.

“I hope now it will be more stable and it’s important for the club. It’s a unique club the whole city is behind the club.

“On the pitch we are doing very well and when you look back over the years, the team at the bottom you see a lot of difference from them to other teams but there’s not a lot of difference between us and tenth place.

“All we want is stability at the club because it will be very difficult to continue like this.

“Positive thinking is always better than negative thinking and as long as we have the chance we will fight.”

United took the lead when Wayne Rooney scored his 23rd goal of the season and Anthony Vanden Borre’s own goal gave the champions a two-goal half-time lead.

Just before the hour, Michael Carrick’s shot looped in off the bar off Richard Hughes and Dimitar Berbatov added a fourth with a fine solo goal.

Portsmouth’s embarrassment was complete when Marc Wilson volleyed into his own net from Patrice Evra’s cross.