We Can Cope With Anyone

Having qualified for the Champions League knockout stages for the 14th time in the last 15 seasons, Sir Alex Ferguson was understandably indifferent about the Reds' prospective pairings in next week's second round draw.

A hard-fought 1-1 draw with Valencia assured United of progress to the last 16 as Group C winners, ruling out potential clashes with Barcelona and Real Madrid, but giving the Reds a chance of facing Serie A leaders AC Milan and reigning European champions Internazionale, among others.

"You have to take who you get," Sir Alex told MUTV. "I think we’ve got the squad; we can cope with anything we get."

Pablo Hernandez's opener for Los Che at Old Trafford was the Reds' first European concession of the season but, rather than dwell on the missed opportunity to set a competition record or bemoan the Michael Carrick mistake which proved costly, the United manager preferred to focus on overcoming a tricky hurdle to top Group C.

"Michael knows better," said Sir Alex. "It’s just one of these unfortunate things. I thought he had a terrific game apart from that. But it’s always nice to get records. Until last week we went 29 games without losing, for instance, and eventually you’re going to lose. Tonight we were going for six clean sheets and we didn’t get it, but the important thing is winning the group is more important than a goal record.

"I think we should’ve won the game. We had a lot of chances. Berba could have scored another four or five tonight, but the goalkeeper made some great saves. The most important thing was coming first after a game which I thought was quite entertaining. It was a good quality match and I’m quite pleased.

"The last 20 minutes was Valencia's best period. They had good control. They made it difficult for our players because we should have scored a couple after we equalised, and then we seemed to settle for what we’d got, knowing a draw would be good enough. Sometimes that’s a dangerous game, especially when you’ve not got the experience at the back. You’ve got Fabio and Rafa, Chris Smalling and Ben Amos, and it was a big task for them. That lack of experience could have cost us."