Sir Alex Ferguson has predicted a five-way fight for the Premier League title this season - and that Manchester United will 'go motoring on' from their victory at Stoke on Sunday.
In a wide-ranging interview, in which Ferguson also suggested his successor at Old Trafford would require the strength of 'experience' and acknowledged that the unedifying Wayne Rooney contract saga had damaged football, the Scot effectively admitted that United's noisy neighbours were now title contenders.
Although he dropped short of highlighting both Manchester City and Tottenham by name, the current league table makes it abundantly clear who any newcomers in the title fight will be if United, Chelsea and Arsenal are challenged.
" I wouldn't be betting against it being a five-horse race," said Ferguson. "I think there is a lot of twists and turns in the race.
"The result at Stoke has had a galvanising effect on the club but we have to motor on now. At the moment Chelsea have done very little wrong but if you look at our programme, we have had a much harder programme than the rest. We've been to Everton, Sunderland, Stoke, Bolton - all these difficult places where nobody enjoys going, but we've got them out of the road now."
Given that Arsenal have already travelled to Liverpool, Blackburn, Sunderland, Chelsea and Manchester City, Arsene Wenger is likely to bridle at the suggestion that United have had the hardest opening schedule of all the contenders.
Speaking to Sirius XM, a US radio station, Ferguson also ruled out the possibility of his successor being a relative novice to management.
"I don't think Manchester United will ever go down the road of having a young manager," he said. "I think it's a job that needs a lot of experience at the top end of the game.
"That's for the future, but at the moment we have the benefit of my 24 years at the club so fortunately we can deal with it. The benefit I have got is of being at the club such a long time, so the experience of all the things that do happen in the club I've gone over in the past and have gone down that road so many times. I think that when you are manager of our club you have to have someone strong to deal with all the issues and we have had to be strong over the years."
Never more so in the past week when United's tough stance on Rooney was eventually rewarded with the striker's dramatic u-turn to sign a new contract.
"At United, you can never be surprised. There is always something happening in the club and always issues to deal with," observed Ferguson. "You can't deny we got a lot of publicity we didn't enjoy but we dealt with it very well.
"It's big enough dealing with winning matches without the publicity attached that doesn't always put football in a good light. We try to be a good part of the game but for a few days last week, there was unfortunate information."
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