Sir Alex Ferguson was understandably delighted after Manchester United reached the FA Cup semi-final by beating Fulham 2-1 at Old Trafford today, although he did have another defensive blunder to give him cause for some concern.
Captain Roy Keane was playing at centre-half in a makeshift defence and his uncharacteristic error let Luis Boa Morte in on goal and Wes Brown's wild lunge earned a rare away penalty at Old Trafford, which was converted by Steed Malbranque. However, Ferguson insisted that he was not worried about his back four.
"Obviously everyone who makes a mistake in the back four the crowd makes them nervous," he said. "We've always made mistakes, most of the players have done it. We have to calm it down, the general defending was very good. Wes Brown had a good game, the penalty kick was just a bit unlucky. The most important thing for us was attacking."
Ruud van Nistelrooy equalised just two minutes later and added a second after the break, much to the delight of his boss: "He picks himself most of the time. he could have scored a lot of goals today, our attacking display was great. He could have scored four and that's what you expect of Ruud.
Ferguson was also keen to praise Cristiano Ronaldo: "He's marvellous, the boy is improving all the time. We try and measure playing and giving him breaks at the right time and by doing that we think he will progress to fulfil his unbelievable potential."
Overall, the boss, who was joined by new assistant Walter Smith for the first time, insisted that he is optimistic for the future: "We are in the semi-final of the FA Cup, we are a kick of a ball away from the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. It will galvanise us against Porto and we can have an exciting game."
With Chris Coleman still unable to take charge, Fulham's acting manager Steve Kean had to comminucate with him by phone at half-time, but neither will have been disappointed by their performance today, even though it ended their Cup run.
"We gave it a go out there. This is a hard place to come and though the result wasn't what we wanted it was a great team effort," Kean said. "On another day Tim Howard might not have made that save at the end and we could have done it, but it's not to be.
"The attitude and commitment was all there. The difference between the sides was in the final third, they had a little bit more penetration than us. I think the performance will give us a lift and if that spurs us on into the top six or seven then great.
"We gave it everything. Our attitude was spot-on, we tried to attack and on another day we might have got a draw, but I'm satisfied with the performance."
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