Premier League is our priority: Ferguson
Sir Alex Ferguson is confident Manchester United will bounce back this season
Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has made reclaiming the Premier League title "priority number one".
With the sun beating down in South Africa on the Red Devils' pre-season tour, it seemed a world away from the travails of an arduous championship campaign - yet the painful manner in which they lost the title to Manchester City last season means what lies ahead has never been far from Ferguson's mind.
"After the disappointment of last year, we want to recover the title," he said in Durban.
"We either win the title or come second, it's an important part of the history of our club over the last 20 years. We have to recover, as we've done many times. That's our target this year. Priority number one is to win the title back."
The quest is a tough one, with City once again preparing to spend big, possibly on Robin van Persie, with whom Ferguson has also been linked.
United's manager is not one to shirk a challenge though, as he has proved so often before. "When Arsenal won the title from us in 1998 we won the treble the next year," he said.
"Then Chelsea came along and got off to a flyer in the league for the first two years, so we changed our pre-season a little to make sure we got off to quick starts.
"Recovery is so important and the same applies this season."
Not that the preparation is going to be particularly easy. For the first half of a pre-season campaign that will see them fly 22,000 miles - on this leg United also have a game in Cape Town on Saturday before a 13-hour flight to Shanghai for a single game next Wednesday - Ferguson will be without all but Anders Lindegaard of his Euro 2012 contingent.
After that, he will be missing Ryan Giggs and Tom Cleverley, who are about to try and win Olympic gold for Great Britain, but Ferguson insisted he is confident in his young players filling the gaps.
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Fergie lives for this kind of challenge, he takes it personally, you can just tell. Over the last 20years each time he loses the title it seems to motivate him to adapt, evolve and meet the new threat, be it Blackburn, Arsenal, Chelsea and now City. Have to admit I actually cried when we lost the title in the last couple of minutes, now I know how the Bayern fans felt in 1999, it's worse than losing on penalties! Having said that, like Fergie, and every other United fan, I'm itching for the new season.
In light of the recent silliness regarding racism, bad language and the decline in sportng conduct I would like to wish ALL the teams and supporters the best of luck for the new season. Let's move on from all this crap and get back to the football.
The crowd piles in to the Stretford End. The 11 finest warriors in Manchester have a mission to complete. The King observes from his throne in the Old Trafford dug out.
All eyes on the prize waiting at the end of the season. That winning goal sends the red crowd wild. That winning goal sends the blue crowd back in to the dark ages of football.
The King will rise from his throne to lead the charge. The reds will fight back in masses. The Red Devils will bounce back. Manchester United will rise higher than ever before.
Manchester City we are coming for you.
well done city and chelsea on your wins, however i see the truth is out! your still obsessed with utd than your own teams!
losing the league on gd being 36 points ahead of liverpool and 15pts clear of chelsea and u call us for being out the league!
one season in yrs we got knocked out early and quite rightly with our form and cockyness costing us!
very quiet the 3 seasons before when we reached 3 finals! oh and 4 out of 5 titles!
just a message to u lot though just remember we can all have barron spells however i hope u can take as much as u give out!
Interesting...check out `footballpantheon.com` and their list of the greatest managers of all time!
They use several methods of scoring, not just the number of trophies won but how they transformed the side and club from when they took over to their highest point and a couple of other methods giving different scores for each one, quite clever really.
Of course I've always thought SAF the finest British manager of all time, that goes without saying, but using their sophisticated scoring method it turns out he's the greatest manager of all time!!!
Now who could argue with that!!!
It's good to be back...and the usual sad `abu's` are out in force!
...so Utd run their club correct and properly as a business...working hard to project the club with sponsorship, ticket sales, merchandising etc etc and utilise the profits made from those to enable the club to purchase players, and that is why they can afford to spend big...they are self-funded!
How many teams can say that?
City and Chelsea were badly run clubs for years and years but despite that they managed to find sugar daddies to bail them out and ignore all their mismanagament and infinitely fund them to buy their success regardless of their past.
I would rather Arsenal won the title...at least they, and Utd, work within their budget!
... yes buddy, we should have taken the manyoo route to success and done a Torino, except with better marketing to milk the sympathy vote for all it was worth. Maybe we would have done if we'd been in manyoo's situation... never having a hope in hell of commanding the majority of the support in the city we come from. Who knows?
Love the way you carry on like a typical classless rag moron... have to have the last word despite having had your brainless 'points' shot to pieces... your arrogance merely makes you thicker!
Kebab Salesman..........eating more than he's selling as usual.
