Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson has set his high-flying team a record target for this season.
United lead cross-town rivals Manchester City by 15 points with just nine games remaining and most pundits have suggested the title race is already over.
However, rather than take their foot off the gas, Ferguson wants his team to chase Chelsea’s record Premier League points haul.
“The record is 95 points by Chelsea,” Ferguson told Sirius XM. “If we get to 95 points I would be absolutely delighted. That would be a fantastic season, and if we do get to that position, we have probably won the league.”
United only need four wins and a draw to claim a record 20th championship and end City’s brief reign as English soccer’s top dogs.
The current mark was set by Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea in 1995, and the Red Devils need seven wins and a draw from their final nine matches to surpass it.
That may be a tough ask, but United are at least well on their way to eclipse another record, their 18-point winning margin in 2000.
A victory against City in the Manchester derby at Old Trafford on April 8 would be enough to stretch out their current advantage to that level, while also reducing the number of points they would need to tie up the title.
However, such domination was far from Ferguson’s thoughts when the season kicked off in August.
“With Manchester City coming on the scene in the last couple of years, and Chelsea and Arsenal and Tottenham, you have teams vying for that top-four position,” Ferguson said.
“I expected it to be really tight. The first point was that after last season, we wanted to make sure we didn’t lose it on goal-difference and that has improved markedly,” he said. “But I never thought we would be 15 points clear at this stage of the season.”
It has given Ferguson some leeway with his selections over the Easter weekend, when United find themselves pitched into two key games in the space of 48 hours.
Following Saturday’s lunchtime trip to Sunderland, the Red Devils must prepare for Monday’s FA Cup quarter-final replay with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
As one of the players not being troubled by international duty, Rio Ferdinand can expect significant involvement following his controversial trip to Qatar, while Ryan Giggs, Nemanja Vidic and Anderson should also be fresh.
“Every coach is praying that their players come back fit,” Ferguson said. “I have to make sure I have some freshness in the team because we also have Chelsea on Monday lunchtime.”
“It is a big ask for our squad and something we need to concentrate on because I need to make sure I pick the right teams,” he said.
Giggs has a significant role to play, having capped his return to form by signing yet another contract extension that will take him past his 40th birthday.
Ferguson does not believe it will end there for the remarkable Welshman, who is set to claim his 13th title winner’s medal.
“Ryan is an exceptional human being,” Ferguson said.
“He has never carried any weight, has never suffered a serious injury and never misses a training session. He is still at the head of the pack in the pre-season,” he added.
“He just has this insatiable appetite to continue playing,” the Scot said. “He will play next year and, who knows, he could possibly play for another year after that.”
“I am sure he will get to 41 and still be playing because he is such a fit lad,” he said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier