Boss To Reward Chicharito

Sir Alex Ferguson feels Javier Hernandez deserves a hat-trick for his efforts at Aston Villa and certainly warrants a start in next weekend's trip to Norwich City.

The predatory Mexican came off the bench to score twice - and claim a third even though the equaliser is likely to go down as an own goal by Ron Vlaar. Chicharito now has at least seven goals in his last five games, netting in each of them, and deserves all the plaudits following another sensational comeback by the team.

"As I have been saying for the last few weeks, he's fresh as he had a good summer break and it's made a difference to him," Sir Alex explained to Sky Sports. "When he came to us two years ago, that's what we're seeing again today and, when you score a hat-trick, you pick yourself. I think he'll be playing next week.

"He does his natural thing. He's fantastic in the penalty box with his movement, his quickness and being in space and that has got him three goals today.

"It's an absolutely magnificent result for us, it was a magnificent game, I must say that. Aston Villa played fantastic today, they've run their socks off and you have to feel sorry for them, with the effort they put in. But we never give in. We hit the bar twice. Once we lost the second goal, we came alive. It was a fantastic game."

The boss was critical of his side's display in the opening period but finds it impossible to be too hard on his players when they continue to show such incredible resolve.

"We were careless in the first half with no real tempo to our game," he added. "We hadn't had a shot on goal so we had to improve on that and we did.

"I was disappointed to lose the second goal like that, when a player goes unmarked into your penalty box, but I started to think if we got a goal we could change the game and, once we scored, it did.

"We get inspired with the support we have and the challenge of coming from two-down to win the game is there for us. We didn't let ourselves down in that respect - we really did put in a shift in the second half to sort ourselves out - as did Villa. But we did put pressure on ourselves today, even though we got through it, and I think it's a little lesson that we really need to be defending better.

"I think I admire the team and the tenacity of the performance. When they need to do it, they do it and the attacking play is terrific at times."