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Man Utd must win Champions League: Ferguson
Mon 11 Dec, 7:14 PM

LONDON (AFP) - Sir Alex Ferguson ordered his Manchester United players to win the Champions League, the English Premiership and the FA Cup if they want to be considered as a great side.

He told his charges it was time to prove how good they are by turning their promising start to the season into silverware.

Ferguson said it was no good just showing signs of being a peerless team -- top players back up the swagger with medals round their necks.

"I'll put it this way: I feel far better today waking up and looking at my team than I did two or three years ago when we weren't winning anything," the Scot said.

"Because at the end of the day, you have to win at our club. That's the nuts and bolts of it all.

"The present day team are showing signs of being a really good team. But they've got to win the league, they've got to win the European Cup, they've got to win an FA Cup. They've got to win these things.

"That's the only way you'll be judged as a good team. Coming a good second, that doesn't come into it."

United are eight points clear of champions Chelsea at the top of the Premiership and are in the last 16 of the Champions League.

Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho has had the last laugh on Ferguson in his first two years in English football, winning the championship both times.

The former Porto coach said United would be "in trouble" if they thought this season's title was in the bag.

But Ferguson has had enough of his taunts and "Special One" swagger, and, being no stranger to mind games himself, the Scot was adamant that the Portuguese manager's digs would not be allowed to derail his title charge.

"We'll all be in trouble if we listen to Jose enough," he said.

"The important thing is to keep our heads and not get carried away, don't make any predictions. I won't be letting my players or myself fall into that trap of thinking we've won the league.

"It's not easily won and Chelsea know that better than anyone," said Ferguson, who has guided United to the Premiership title eight times.

"All we've done is given ourselves a foundation. It's the first time we've ever been in this position at the beginning of December. Usually we're lagging behind a little. I think we've given ourselves a good chance."

Ferguson said he was confident that his side would last the distance with Chelsea thanks to a combination of livewire youngsters and battle-hardened veterans.

"All the championship races are tough because you know you can't make mistakes," said the 64-year-old.

"The real test comes in the run-in when you know that mistakes can cost you everything.

"I'm sure it'll be ourselves and Chelsea. I'm sure we'll last the distance. I'm confident of that because we've got a lot of energy in the team, we've youth in the side. We have got a couple of old codgers like Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs but we can rest them at the right time.

"When the run-in comes in, experience teaches you that we've been there before."

Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon, a defector from United, recently claimed that the Blues have the potential to be the world's most powerful club by 2014.

But Ferguson snorted at any notions of Chelsea being an elite name in world football, saying there were European teams with a far more illustrious past.

"There's nothing wrong with people having ambition, I've no problem with that," Ferguson scoffed.

"But there's other great clubs in the world: there's ourselves, Arsenal and Liverpool with history, there's Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and the Italian giants, and all these clubs have got a fantastic history.

"So they've got a big mountain to climb to get over that lot. We'll continue doing our talking on the pitch."