Ferguson surprised as United go top

Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson said he was surprised to be overtaking Manchester City at the top of the English Premier League.

Rivals City fell to a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Swansea, allowing the Red Devils to move one point clear at the summit thanks to their 2-0 win at home against West Brom.

Despite the slender advantage, the Scot admits there is still a long road ahead before a winner is crowned in the title race.

“That was a bonus I didn’t expect that maybe,” Ferguson told MUTV. “At this time of the season points will be dropped and you have to make sure you don’t drop as many as your opponents.”

“If you can keep winning that is the name of the game for both of us. If you keep winning the games whittle away and you run out of games.”

“You don’t mind but I don’t care about being top of the league just now. I’m happy to be there because only a few weeks ago we were five-seven points behind them and now we’re one point ahead.”

“So we’ve turned around eight points and that’s credit to the players and also the resilience of our squad because as everyone knows we’ve had a lot of injuries.”

The 60-year-old was pleased with the way his team played, but feels the manner of victory could have been more emphatic had the Red Devils taken all of the chances on offer.

“It was a great performance. It took us a little bit of time to get the rhythm of our game right but once we got that we played some exciting stuff. It was really good football,” he said.

“We could have scored a lot of goals. If there is a criticism, that is it. But all over the pitch we produced a sterling performance. There was a real will to win and we are well please with that part.”

West Brom boss Roy Hodgson was pleased with the way his side stuck to their task even after going down to 10 men following Jonas Olsson’s dismissal.

“We made a good fist of the first half until Rooney’s goal,” Hodgson told the club’s official website. “We were working hard to contain them.”

“The second half was going to be harder and then going down to ten men, and while being down to ten men having to change our back-four by putting a midfield player into right-back, we end up conceding the second goal.”

“To be frank, after that it is just a question of making sure you don’t go away from here with a really heavy defeat, because at 2-0 with ten men United, with the quality they have and the ability to keep the ball, it was always going to be an uphill task.

“I think I can commend the West Brom players for the effort they put in.”