Devils don’t need to see red at being left behind

GARY NEVILLE doesn’t believe Manchester United need to beat themselves up over their Premiership form this season.

United head into the packed Christmas programme nine points adrift of defending champions Chelsea, seemingly with little chance of wresting the title from Jose Mourinho's grasp.

Amazingly, Sir Alex Ferguson's men find themselves in such a position despite collecting a massive 37 points from their opening 17 games, a total they have bettered only three times in the past decade, during which they brought six league titles to Old Trafford.

The closest United got to matching Chelsea's current tally of 46 points won before Christmas was two seasons ago, when they amassed 40 points in the same period but still lost the title to Arsenal after collapsing following Rio Ferdinand's lengthy drugs test ban.

While the figures only serve to underline how far standards have been raised by Chelsea's surge to power, Neville does not believe the Carling Cup semi-finalists have need to feel down over their efforts on the domestic front.

"We feel as though we are doing okay," said United's new skipper.

"Over the whole season, our form in the league has not been overly bad.

"If you look at our points tally, our victories and our number of losses, they would not be below par for this time of the season.

"We have lost two games so far. In some seasons we have lost far more than that and still gone on to win championships.

"But we must also recognise the bar has been raised and we have to raise our standard with that."

It is a source of obvious frustration within United that Chelsea have not even conceded a goal, let alone dropped a point, since Darren Fletcher's solitary header condemned the Blues to a first league defeat at the beginning of November one of only two occasions this term when Chelsea have failed to gain maximum points.

While United can be confident of maintaining their impressive recent form by beating West Brom, on Boxing Day, and Birmingham at St Andrews, 48 hours later, it is difficult to see Chelsea slipping up against Fulham or Manchester City.

"Obviously, the title is out of our hands just now because Chelsea are winning every single match they play," observed Neville.

"All we can do is concentrate on our own job, get the victories we need and hope something happens in terms of Chelsea dropping points."

After resting a number of key men for Tuesday's League Cup tie at Birmingham, Ferguson is likely to freshen up his team for the Baggies visit by making at least half a dozen changes.

Edwin van der Sar, Rio Ferdinand, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Wayne Rooney are all set to return as United chase their seventh victory in eight Premiership outings, a run that dates back to the team's horrific hiding at Middlesbrough in October.

That certainly puts into perspective talk of a crisis at Old Trafford, especially as wins over Wigan, Aston Villa and Birmingham, in the last week, have yielded nine goals more like the tally United have been producing over the years.