Sir Alex Ferguson has warned the rest of the Premier League to watch out if Manchester United are still top of the table on New Year's Day.
As they head into the four-game festive programme United lead Manchester City by six points. "We have every right to expect a challenge. I think that's what we are good at," Ferguson said.
"That's why I'm looking at December as an opportunity to gather points and make sure we are top of the league come New Year's Day. And if we are top of the league on New Year's Day, you know fine well that we're going to be in the ballpark at the end of the season. We know there are going to be challenges, it could come from Chelsea too, but I think City and ourselves will be battling it out."
Last Saturday Roberto Mancini's side responded to losing the Manchester derby by winning 3-1 at Newcastle United and Ferguson emphasised that City's challenge will not fade.
"Absolutely, it was great. It's a wake-up call for us too," Ferguson said. "I thought for the first 20 minutes, they played really well. You see the stats from that game and it's quite amazing. Newcastle had more passes and shots on goal. But you watch the game and you say to yourself: 'I can't see Newcastle winning the game.' It's a funny game, football."
United's goal difference is one better than City's and after losing the title on this factor last season, Ferguson was unhappy that Sunderland were not beaten by a greater margin than 3-1 in the previous outing. "It's just a disappointment we didn't hammer home the advantage we had at 3-0. We just put the tools away and Sunderland did get a spark of life when they brought on Connor Wickham. He was a handful and in the last 20 minutes they did create chances," Ferguson said.
"When you take the foot off the pedal it's very difficult to get it back and the way we are, we can't afford to take our foot off the pedal. Hopefully it's a reminder to us that we have to kick on all the time. It was a good chance to score plenty of goals in that game because some of the football was very good and we were creating some great chances so hopefully we can start adding to our goal difference which is similar to City's."
Nemanja Vidic may start in Sunday's trip to Swansea City after returning from injury as a second-half substitute against Sunderland. His fellow central defender Jonny Evans has signed a new contract that ties him to United until 2016. Ferguson said: "We're very happy about that and it's in keeping with our normal policy that when the younger players get to the second last year of their contract we have to do something about it and I'm delighted Jonny has signed a new contract. He's had a fantastic career for us, progressing all the time. He's had one or two injury situations that are hopefully behind him now. He's fit for Sunday's game." Swansea are followed by Newcastle United at home on Boxing Day, then West Bromwich Albion at home and Wigan Athletic away.
Regarding speculation that Rio Ferdinand, Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes could retire in the summer, Ferguson added: "Scholes says very little and I would be surprised if he spoke to some pal without speaking to me. You've got to dismiss that and I think that Giggs will play for another year or two years. Rio's form this year has been terrific. It's the kind of speculation you expect because we only put older players on one-year contracts."
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