Vidic Surprise At Reds' Position

United are level on points with Chelsea and have an opportunity to go top of the league – temporarily at least – with victory over Blackburn Rovers on Saturday. But after plenty of dropped points, particularly draws away from home, skipper Nemanja Vidic can’t help but feel slightly fortunate to be in this position.

That said, United are not the only team to suffer adverse results this season. In fact, the Reds’ unbeaten start to 2010/11 appears remarkably consistent considering the weekly shock scorelines being churned out by an increasingly unpredictable league. Now - with qualification for the knockout stages of the Champions League in the bag - Nemanja and his team-mates can turn their attentions almost exclusively to the title pursuit during the winter period.

“It is important we have qualified for the knockout phase of the Champions League,” said Vidic on Friday. “We are very happy. Now we can focus more on the Premier League. We are on top, level on points with Chelsea. This is definitely the time to play the best football we can and to make sure we start to win the next few games.

“We would like to have more points than we have. But it is not bad that we still haven’t lost a game. I am surprised at where we are. But we've seen this year teams are better and are competing more against the top four or five. The top five have all lost so many points.

“It puts us in a high position. But there's a long way to go. If someone had told us we would have this many points at this stage of the season we would have been disappointed. But we are not in a bad position.”

Vidic and his central defensive partner Rio Ferdinand were given the night off for the midweek trip to Ibrox. Sir Alex wanted to give talented young pairing Chris Smalling and Jonny Evans a run-out, but the twin-benefit of leaving his first-choice men back home in Manchester is that they are fresh for the inevitable aerial and physical battle that awaits this weekend.

“Rio has been in good form in the last few games,” added Vida. “He is back now and has showed how important he is to us. The question of whether we play better football with us two together, it is hard to say. It is not just about Rio and me. It is about the whole team. We defend together and attack like a team. That has helped.

“As for Blackburn, they had a good result against Aston Villa last week. They are in good form, and it will be a physical game. They play more long balls into the box, that is what we expect. We will try to put the ball on the ground and play our game. We want to put the three points in our pocket and move forward.”

Nemanja was speaking to BBC Radio Manchester.