Vidic Issues Rallying Cry

Nemanja Vidic says United must not dwell on the FA Cup semi-final defeat to Manchester City and concentrate instead on winning a record 19th league title.

The Reds' skipper has challenged his United team-mates to bounce back from losing to City at Wembley by picking up three points against Newcastle in the Premier League on Tuesday.

Speaking after Saturday’s semi-final defeat, Vidic told MUTV: “We have played many games in the last few weeks and the next one is against Newcastle away, which is always a hard game to play.

“We must forget the City game now and concentrate on winning the title. It will not be easy but we have to perform, play good football and try to win the league.”

In the end, Yaya Toure’s goal was the deciding factor in an extremely tense and nervy affair in which both United and City enjoyed spells of dominance. Although Vidic cites the Reds’ second half performance as the root cause for defeat.

“We had two or three chances in the first half but didn’t score the goal," he added. "All they had were shots from distance but their goal has cost us the final.

“We didn’t play as we should have in the second half. It was more open, they played a bit higher up the pitch and scored a goal.

“We had a few good situations from the right side which I think we should have done something with but we didn’t. We talked a lot about concentration, but today we didn’t concentrate enough.”