United will capture silver this season, says Silvestre

MIKAEL SILVESTRE is in no doubt – Manchester United will win trophies this season.

The French international celebrated signing a new four-year contract at Old Trafford by grabbing man of the match honours in Tuesday night's Worthington Cup win over Chelsea.

It continued a recent resurgence which has raised hopes of an unprecedented haul of four trophies.

Even if the odds are stacked against Alex Ferguson's men, Silvestre is convinced there will be no repeat of last season's barren campaign.

"Everything is going so well at the moment, so I'm really pleased to have got my contract out of the way and be part of a team with the fighting spirit we have here," said the 25-year-old.

"In the last few weeks we have got ourselves back into the league, done well in Europe and now reached the semi-finals of the Worthington Cup.

"We have so much quality here and so many world class players. I'm sure we are going to win trophies in the future."

While speculation suggesting his dissatisfaction with a continued left-back role was placing his United future in jeopardy proved to be well wide of the mark, Silvestre has inadvertently found himself switched into the central position he is believed to favour.

And he has responded with a series of inspired performances alongside injury-jinxed Wes Brown which has helped extend United's winning sequence to eight.

So impressive have the duo's performances been that veteran Laurent Blanc who is a known favourite of his manager has been unable to force his way back into the team after his own recent injury.

United have now gone five games without conceding a goal, the first time they have achieved that feat since 1997.

Silvestre refused to state his preference for either defensive role and the likelihood is he will be switched to full-back when Rio Ferdinand returns from knee surgery later this month.