Boss Upbeat After Toon Draw

Sir Alex Ferguson remains confident of landing a record 19th title after the goalless draw at Newcastle.

The boss concedes the trip to Tyneside was a difficult one and he feels upcoming fixtures against nearest challengers Arsenal and Chelsea will be pivotal to the Reds' hopes of remaining on top of the Barclays Premier League.

"I'm confident we'll be fine now as that was a hard one to get over," said Sir Alex. "At this stage of the season, we're in a better position than we were on Saturday as there's one less game and five games left.

"I think you've got to look at Chelsea also and how they respond to three home games in a row. There's two important games coming up - obviously Arsenal away and Chelsea at home. But we've got a better goal difference than Chelsea and I think we're in a better position today."

Sir Alex appreciates the need to keep rotating his squad after making five changes to the team beaten by City at Wembley.

"We did that tonight [reshuffled the pack] as we tried our best to freshen up," he added. "We did the best we could as it was a tiring pitch at Wembley, a slow pitch that can drag players down a little bit. But, in fairness, we didn't show signs of that - we were energetic and our players thrived on the challenge, which is good coming at this stage of the season."