Ruud van Nistelrooy started to repay his massive transfer fee with a double strike against Premiership new boys Fulham in Manchester United's 3-2 win. Fulham were far from outclassed, however, and the Premiership champions had to twice come from behind after Louis Saha's two well-taken goals, before the Dutchman scored two goals in two minutes to seal the game.
Sir Alex Ferguson admitted that his team were lucky to win, and expressed concern about his defence. "There seems to be a sluggishness, a lack of awareness. It is not as though teams are slicing us wide open with great passes and dribbling. The simplest ways to score goals is to go straight through and until we get that correct, we are going to have a fight like we had today," he said.
"There's a casualness about the defending which I hope will improve as the weeks go on. We need to get an edge to our defending - I would expect us to last more than four minutes before conceding a goal," added Ferguson.
Ferguson chose to spend big on attacking players during the summer, rather than strengthening the defence, but was delighted to see his newest striker opening his Premiership scoring account. "Van Nistelrooy's goal was a marvellous bit of getting something from nothing and for five minutes they got nervous and that won us the game. It was absolutely superb, a goalscorer's goal, and it was a bit fortuitous for us to win," said the Old Trafford boss.
Fulham striker Louis Saha, scorer of 32 goals in Division One last season, was delighted to beat Fabien Barthez twice. "It's like a dream to score against Fabien Barthez because he's one of the best keepers in the world. It was a pleasure. We've showed all over the pitch we play good football," said the 22-year-old Frenchman.
Filed by Greg McKevitt
