Sir Alex Ferguson was effusive in his praise of his team after Manchester United gave Fulham a 5-0 hiding at Craven Cottage.
United continued to keep pace with Manchester City as goals from Danny Welbeck, Nani and Ryan Giggs in the first half settled the game before Wayne Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov wrapped things up near the end with two late goals.
Rooney’s goal saw him become the youngest player to reach 300 Premier League appearances while Berbatov notched his 50th goal for the club.
“I think it was one of our best performances of the season, particularly in the first half when we played some superb football,” Ferguson told Sky Sports.
“It is not an easy place to come, we have known that for years now but tonight the players were on song and continued on from their good performance on Sunday against QPR.”
Ferguson stressed the importance of pushing for big wins in the chase for the league title.
“Yes, they do help. We showed good patience before we got the first goal, though,” he said.
“We kept the ball, passed it around and got the penetration so it was a good start to the game and we got control and kept it until half-time.”
The United boss also reserved special praise for the breathtaking goals scored by Rooney and Berbatov.
“It was a great strike from Wayne and another great one from Berbatov near the end,” he said.
“We had to make changes tonight, we had Antonio Valencia at right-back and Rio Ferdinand missing, so great credit to the players for standing up to those problems.”
Fulham manager Martin Jol was frank about Fulham’s mistakes in their execution after witnessing his side’s collapse against United.
“If you have eight attempts on goal like they did and score five of them, then it’s a horror scenario,” said Jol.
“They played around us on the flanks and we did not defend well. Nani scored a header which tells you all.”
“We let ourselves down. We improved and could have scored a few but it is not easy when you are 3-0 down.”
“They have a lot of quality but we were not aggressive enough. Conceding early is not good for your confidence. It was too easy for them.”
“We have to pick ourselves up because there are a lot of teams on the same amount of points.”
“We couldn’t get the ball to Moussa Dembele and Clint Dempsey, never mind Andy Johnson, and that was disappointing.”
