Progress Pleases Sir Alex

Sir Alex Ferguson was satisfied and encouraged by his side's performance in the Capital One Cup triumph against Newcastle.

United progressed to a blockbuster tie in the fourth round at Chelsea despite fielding a very inexperienced defence and handing out a total of four senior debuts on the night at Old Trafford.

"I'm very pleased," he admitted. "First of all, given the tie was an all-Premier League one and Newcastle are probably a stronger team than us physically, we played some fantastic football. We kept on playing our football and perservered with that and had good composure in our game.

"I was really pleased with that and I think we deserved to win. Newcastle are a very powerful team so it's good to get through that one.

"Wayne Rooney and Darren Fletcher were excellent - Wayne understandably tired a little towards the end but that was to be expected. I'm really pleased for the both of them. They have all done really well. Some of them tired but that was understandable as it was a first game for some of them.

"I'm very pleased for Anderson and Cleverley - both of them were terrific strikes. The second goal was a great bit of football and Tom has done well to sidefoot the ball home. It was a really good performance."

The boss felt the youthful back four did well to cope with the threat posed by Shola Ameobi and substitute Papiss Cisse.

"They did their best," he stated. "It was difficult.

"Ameobi is a massive big lad, a handful, and Cisse has a lot of experience and is a terrific player. He's one of the best players at the club and it was a compliment to us that they did that. So I thought they handled it quite well.

"The name of the game here is to win football matches. Tonight we've given a lot of youngsters and squad players a game. If we progress, they will be involved."

Sir Alex was speaking to Sky Sports and MUTV.