Fergie: We Were Too Relaxed

Sir Alex admitted he felt relieved after Bolton's late siege in a game United should have wrapped by the hour mark. The boss also commented on an alarming phenomenon which many of us noticed - namely that the team is just too relaxed and lax on occasions.

'We made it hard for ourselves when we should've been well in front,' Sir Alex told MUTV.

'When Bolton scored late on, the last 10 minutes were nervous. We panicked at times but we got through it - just.

'Some of the football was very good. There was great speed to our game and we were a constant threat to them. It's a pity we didn't get our second goal earlier on, because we could have run up another good score.

When Bolton came into the game a little bit before half-time, we caught them on the break. That was a comfort zone for us - maybe too much because they were relaxed in terms of their play in the second half.'

Too right - and it was obvious against City (think about Rio's 'pass' in the 90th minute) and even against Sunderland where the players seemed to think that we would somehow win the game, no matter how badly we play. It doesn't work like that and we were caught out this way in 2001/02 where sometimes we seemed to think it was our divine right to win games simply by sending on our shirts.

It's Liverpool away next in the league and they will be certainly up for it as so far they made a mockery of the media predictions that they would win the league, no matter how laughable these predictions were anyway. We just have to start concentrating properly, as champions do. Because otherwise the total farce that was the 2001/02 season could repeat itself.

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