United face fight of their lives to stay in race, says Neville

GARY NEVILLE has admitted Manchester United already face the fight of their lives to stay in the championship race.

With four games gone, Alex Ferguson’s side trail reigning champions Arsenal and Chelsea by seven points. United had to settle for a home draw against Everton and have picked up only five points.

The club’s London rivals, in contrast, have hit the ground running by securing a maximum tally of 12. England defender Neville said: “we are seven points behind in the championship race after four games and that is all I am thinking about at the moment.

“That’s a massive gap and means we have a long haul to try and peg it back. We have to do something about it and start putting together a winning run soon.”

United are not back in action because of the international break until a week on Saturday when they are away at high-flying Bolton. By then captain Roy Keane, striker Ruud van Nistelrooy and central defender Wes Brown could be closer to full fitness after injury setbacks.

But Neville said: “people talk about players coming back but they might never come back. We might get more injuries, it might never happen.

“The championship might be over by the time players come back.

“We have to make sure that the players we have go out on the pitch and perform.” United hit the woodwork three times in the draw against Everton and have scored only three goals in the league campaign.

Neville said: “that is not good enough. We have not shown enough quality in our performances, it is as simple as that.

“We have not had a settled side the last couple of weeks and that has not helped.

“But we have still got to do better. There are no excuses With the quality of player we have and the possession we had in the matches against Chelsea, Norwich, Blackburn and Everton, we’ve been 60% every time, even against Chelsea.

“We are not scoring goals and not creating enough chances.”

United secured a last-gasp equaliser at Blackburn at the weekend through Alan Smith and Neville added: “perhaps we should have been more ruthless but we did quite well in the second half. But against Everton we did not get near that and we need to get wins quickly after the international break.”