Ferguson praises United´s winning attitude

Sir Alex Ferguson believes his Manchester United side “were the only team who wanted to win” following their 2-0 defeat of Norwich on Saturday.

Goals from Anderson and Danny Welbeck sealed a club record 19th straight home victory in the league, but the result could have gone either way as the visitors wasted chances and found the frame of the goal.

“We felt we did better. We deserved to win because we were the team who wanted to win,” Ferguson told Sky Sports News.

“We kept at it in our own fashion and we always get to that stage where we never give in.”

However, Ferguson did praise Norwich for the way they played and made life difficult for the Premier League champions.

“I felt we were far too slow in our build-up play in the first half. We changed things round a little bit in the second in terms of Nani playing on the left and Ji-Sung Park moving to the right, telling (Antonio) Valencia to get ahead.”

“We dominated but the thing about dominating a game like that is, you don’t take great care of the defensive side of your game.”

“Every counter-attack they had, they got something out of it. The long balls up to the centre-forward (Steve) Morison, they played very well.”

“They set out their stall very well in terms of the two centre-midfield players staying in front of their back four, and any system like that is always very hard to break down.”

“And they hit the post, had a great chance to go 1-0 up. And that’s what happens when you’re facing counter-attacks today, you have to be really clever defensively to deal with constant attacking in the game.”

Ferguson also had news on two absent United players – winger Ashley Young and goalkeeper David de Gea.

“Ashley (Young) has a little knock on his ankle, and it wasn’t worth risking him to be honest with you. We’ve got big programmes coming up,” he added.

“We’ve got Giggs available, we’ve got Ji-Sung Park available, Valencia available, Nani available, so we’ve got plenty of cover in the wide positions. (Young) should be OK for England, but we’ll see.”

“David (de Gea) has two games for Spain, whereas Anders (Lindegaard) has no game at all for two weeks so it was a good time to give him a chance.”