In his first detailed analysis of Manchester United's worst home defeat for 17 years, Sir Alex Ferguson blamed a combination of tiredness, overconfidence and catastrophic individual errors as the reasons why Liverpool ran riot at Old Trafford.
The Manchester United manager chose to speak only to the club's in-house television channel, MUTV, after Liverpool's 4–1 victory on Saturday. Today, he acknowledged that a "result like that is hard to defend" but insisted his side could use it to their advantage.
"Before we go to Fulham, I have to be clear in my mind as to the reasons why we lost," he said. "We suffered from self-inflicted wounds and mistakes you don't expect.
"For weeks we had to listen to eulogies and take compliments on how good this side of ours was. I kept deflecting that and said how tough this league is and Saturday was just a reminder.
"In a way it will help us because we realise there is a lot of work to be done. To win the league we have had to go to the last day of the season on three or four occasions and now we have to get the show on the road again.
"We had some tiredness after the game with Inter, there is no doubt about that. Then we suffered another blow when Darren Fletcher, who was down to play against Liverpool, picked up a virus on the morning of the game. I had to play Michael Carrick, who had already played so many games. One more proved a hard task for him."
Not since New Year's Day 1992, when Queens Park Rangers humbled United 4–1, had Old Trafford seen a result like it, although the parallels are more with their 5–0 defeat at Newcastle in October 1996. Then, as now, it was a shockingly comprehensive reverse by a major rival which left the Red Devils in a temporary state of shock.
"You have to answer tough questions every time Manchester United lose a game," Ferguson said. "There were no lives lost on Saturday. It doesn't affect me and it shouldn't affect any of my players. The one good thing is that I am used to it and so are my players. There are a lot of ways of using a defeat like that to your advantage.
"People, and especially young people, like to read good things about themselves but football is a game that comes back and bites you quite sorely and we have suffered from it many times before.
"When we lost to Newcastle 5–0, the BBC screened a two-hour documentary about the demise of Manchester United and we won the league by seven points." That is true, although Ferguson omitted to mention that back then Manchester United lost their next two league matches as well as their next two in the Champions League.
