BLAME IT ON RIO

"Simply because we were four points clear. We had the best defensive record in the country. We were playing with great consistency and we usually do well in the second halves of the season, but after Rio's ban, we then hit a spate of injuries.”

"Quinton Fortune, first of all, injured himself in training and missed the rest of the season in early Feb, and then Mikael Silvestre got his ankle injury and he was out for three to four weeks. And Gary Neville then got a thigh injury and a suspension, so, when we were playing, our back four was changing every minute.”

"There is no question that unless you have a regular back four at that level, going in to that part of the season you are going to struggle, and we did,"

"I think that we've got to make sure that we are better. I am not concerning myself with what Arsenal are going to do, I'm only interested in what Manchester United are going to do. Our issue is to make sure we're covered better defensively than we were last season, and we'll get that improvement"

David Gill on the official website.

"If you looked at our form before Rio Ferdinand was suspended, we had the best defence, we were sitting at the top of the league in very good shape. Then the wheels came off a bit, so losing Rio was a big blow. You don't lose a £30million defender - one of the top defenders in European football - without it hurting you. It would be stupid to say it didn't."