Sir Alex Ferguson
Sir Alex Ferguson described Antonio Valencia's late winning goal as
typifying Manchester United's history after the defending champions beat
Blackburn Rovers to go five points clear at the top of the Premier
League table.
United dominated the match at Ewood Park but did not find the
breakthrough until the 81st minute when Valencia drilled home a
cross-cum-shot, before Ashley Young secured a 2-0 victory with a precise
finish, reports Goal.com.
"Coming so late in the game, it is an important goal," Ferguson told
Sky Sports. "It typifies the history of the club. If you don't try to
shoot, you're never going to find out if you can score like that.
"There was amazing power on it. It could have been a cross, could have
been a shot, but it doesn't matter. There was great power [on the
attempt]."
Sir Alex felt that for all of the possession his team had enjoyed, they
had struggled to really test Blackburn goalkeeper, Paul Robinson.
"It was a long night," he admitted. "We just had to persevere and we
got our rewards for it. We weren't really creating any clear-cut chances
– Wayne [Rooney] had a good free kick saved by the goalkeeper, and
there was a lot of great crosses by Antonio that weren't finished off.
"We always had them under the cosh, but we had to be careful of their counterattack. They were dangerous at that point."
Steve Kean's team almost took the lead on the stroke of half-time when
David de Gea denied both Marcus Olsson and Grant Hanley with excellent
saves.
De Gea had struggled when Blackburn recorded a shock 3-2 win at Old Trafford in December.
"The progress [of De Gea] is obvious, you can see that," Sir Alex
enthused. "The boy is growing in stature and confidence and he's always
had great ability. He made three great first half saves and that's the
kind of threat Blackburn offered to us."
"They presented us with this counter-attack, they try long balls and
they're dangerous with that, they're very dangerous. David has kept us
in the game. The first half we hit the post, we had a penalty claim that
I don't think was [a penalty] and a lot of possession as you saw. Just
to get that goal was very difficult with the way that Blackburn defended
so deeply."
The 70-year-old manager was not sure that his switch to 4-3-3 had
helped United but hailed the club's supporters for playing their part in
the Red Devils' important win after around 7,000 of them made the short
journey to Ewood Park.
"It [the change in formation] gave us a stability and a security in
midfield but it didn't necessarily give us the threat we were looking
for," Sir Alex explained. "Ryan Giggs coming on made a difference and
certainly Ashley Young coming on made a big, big difference.
"The fans were fantastic, they were unbelievable. They deserve the
result tonight because they never stopped, they urged us on the whole
way. They almost sucked that ball in [to the goal]. It's frustrating at
the end of matches sometimes and that's where it was right tonight."
The result puts United in control as it looks to defend its Premier
League title, giving it the opportunity to, at least briefly, go eight
points clear at the top when it plays QPR on Sunday.
"We've scored more goals, which is a big step for us – the goal
difference deficit has gone down to only one goal," Sir Alex added. "It
could come to goal difference, who knows. It's significant that we've
now scored more goals than Manchester City. We look as if we can score.
"We've still got seven games left and my experience of these situations
is that it doesn't matter what the points total is at the moment – what
is really important is trying to win Sunday's game."
