Fergie blames defence

Over the Blue Moon: Trevor Sinclair celebrates scoring City's third goal

Sir Alex Ferguson all but conceded the Premiership title to Arsenal after a crushing Manchester-derby defeat which he blamed on his "sloppy" defence.

United's 4-1 thrashing at Manchester City leaves them 12 points adrift of their Highbury rivals with only 10 games left.

Ferguson admitted: "This was a terrible result. You can't mask that. It's going to be difficult to catch Arsenal now. But we can't even think about what is going on around us.

"We've simply got to concentrate on getting our form and confidence back because it is just not good enough at the moment."

United have taken only nine points out of a possible 24 after leading the table by three points on 7 January and conceded 20 goals in 10 games in all competitions.

Ferguson blamed the defence for a defeat that has left United in third position, but now three points behind second-placed Chelsea.

He said: "The most effective way to defend is to keep it simple. At the moment, we are not defending realistically.

"We are trying to pass the ball out of the box and we are not attacking the ball. We are being far too hesitant and not clearing our lines and dunking the ball out.

"It is the kind of sloppy defending that has been endemic in our play for the last two months.

"We have to make sure the responsibilities are with the players. We've got to forget what's happening around us at the moment.

"We can't do much about that unless our form improves and it's not good enough at the moment."

The United boss is desperately hoping for a rare piece of good news amid one of the most dismal periods of his Old Trafford tenure to spark the season back into life.

Not since the early, trophyless days of his United career has Ferguson been under as much pressure to deliver as he is now.

Fans have besieged phone-ins with their complaints and condemnationof the side after seeing the club's miserable exit from Europe and their title chances ripped away.

All United eyes now turn to Thursday, for the start of Rio Ferdinand's appeal into his eight-month ban for a missed drugs test.

Even if Ferdinand was cleared to play immediately, he would not be fit enough to tackle Tottenham on Saturday, but beyond that, the £29.3million England man would be an automatic selection.

"Rio is in front of the appeals panel on Thursday and we are looking for a far fairer outcome than we got last time," said Ferguson.

Goals from Robbie Fowler, Jon Macken, Trevor Sinclair and Shaun Wright-Phillips helped City to victory yesterday, while Paul Scholes struck for the visitors.

"The scoreline flattered us but it is in the history books now," said a jubilant Kevin Keegan.

"I know they had a few players missing but if you look at their side, it is still very strong.

"They produced some great football and in Paul Scholes had the outstanding player on the pitch."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in