Sir Alex Ferguson believes that five teams will battle it out for the Premier League title this season (United 9/2 Premier League Outright) and expects it to be a roller coaster ride right until May next year.
Manchester United maintained their challenge near the top of the table with a 2-1 victory at Stoke on Saturday and they are one of three teams currently on 17 points – five behind high-flying Chelsea at the summit.
Tottenham occupy fifth spot with 15 points and, while not mentioning the teams by name, it appears that the United boss believes the current top five will be involved in the title race when the business end of the season approaches.
The Wayne Rooney saga has now been cleared up and Ferguson is looking forward to stringing a run of decent results together after coming through a difficult patch, which has seen then club held to four draws away from home already this term, with just one win on their travels.
The boss feels that, despite Chelsea’s superb start to the campaign, there is plenty of time for one of the chasing pack to make a move and throw a spanner in the works as the season progresses, with United having already visited some of the toughest grounds in the top flight.
“I wouldn’t be betting against it being a five-horse race,” he told US radio station Sirius XM. “I think there is a lot of twists and turns in the race.
“The result at Stoke has had a galvanising effect on the club but we have to motor on now.”
Fergie added: “At the moment Chelsea have done very little wrong but if you look at our programme, we have had a much harder programme than the rest.
“We’ve been to Everton, Sunderland, Stoke, Bolton – all these difficult places where nobody enjoys going, but we’ve got them out of the road now.”
United take on Wolverhampton Wanderers in the Carling Cup on Tuesday night with Ferguson expected to field a virtual second-string side against Mick McCarthy’s men (Man Utd 2/7, Draw 4/1, Wolves 11/1 – Match Betting).
Michael Owen should get a run-out while Javier Hernandez will probably be rested, with Spurs set to visit Old Trafford on Saturday in a mouth-watering clash of two attack-minded teams.
With Liverpool out of the title reckoning, the north Londoners are part of Fergie’s ‘big five’ contenders and victory over Harry Redknapp’s talented outfit would further boost the confidence of a club still coming to terms with the negative publicity surrounding Rooney’s contract negotiations and put down a marker for the rest of the season.
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