Moyes Implores United To Keep The Faith

Manchester United manager David Moyes vowed on Tuesday that his struggling team’s fortunes will improve if they keep faith with their current methods.

United head into Wednesday’s Premier League match at Arsenal having lost five of their nine matches since the turn of the year.

The 2-2 draw at home to Fulham on Sunday, in a game that United dominated, left the champions seventh in the table, nine points off fourth place and 15 points below leaders Chelsea.

Moyes defended his side’s tactics against bottom-of-the-table Fulham and expressed certainty that United’s luck would turn.

“Football does that sometimes and we have to make sure it doesn’t happen too often, but I do think there have been a few twists this season and hopefully we’ll get them back in the future,” he said.

“You just continue doing the right things. We’re doing the right things, we need to keep going and your luck will change, there’s no doubt about that.”

Moyes also dismissed suggestions that defender Rio Ferdinand would not travel to a training camp in Dubai later this week, amid claims in the British media that the 35-year-old centre-back is due to announce his retirement.

Ferdinand’s contract expires at the end of the season, but Moyes said that the rumours about his future were wide of the mark.

“I can only tell you that what was written was a load of rubbish, complete nonsense,” the former Everton manager said during a brief press conference at United’s Carrington training complex.

“We’ve got a chance to have a few days off and we’ll see. We’ve got a big Champions League game (away to Olympiakos) coming up in just over a week’s time.”

The club subsequently confirmed that Ferdinand will make the trip to Dubai, while the player himself wrote on Twitter: “Must be another slow news day.”

United are not in FA Cup action at the weekend, having been knocked out of the competition in the third round by Swansea City.

United beat Arsenal 1-0 at Old Trafford in November and Moyes is sure that his team can put in a similar performance at the Emirates Stadium despite their recent problems.

“We’ll always go and try to get a good result,” he said. “We got a good result against them here at Old Trafford earlier in the season and we’ll try to do the same again.

“We’ve played better in several games, but in that one we got the goal and sometimes that makes a difference. We’ll go and play. We are a top side and hopefully we’ll go and show that we are, play well, and do everything we can to pick up the three points.

“We played well (against Fulham) and in any other game you would have scored many goals. We didn’t get it on the day. Everybody keeps telling me about the stats and the opportunities we had, so we had plenty of chances to win the game.”