Sir Alex: We are in good shape

Sir Alex Ferguson believes Manchester United "are in good shape" ahead of Sunday's trip to Stoke City after injured trio Jonny Evans, Nemanja Vidic and Chris Smalling all made positive strides this week.
Speaking during his Friday morning press conference at Carrington, the boss confirmed Evans has trained all week and is in contention to start at the Britannia Stadium, while Vidic and Smalling have stepped up their individual workloads to potentially boost the Reds' defensive options.
Paul Scholes should start training next Monday after struggling with a knee problem in recent months, however Ashley Young is set to be out for a fortnight with an ankle injury sustained during Monday's derby defeat to Manchester City at Old Trafford.
"I'm hoping Vida will start training today," Sir Alex told reporters. "Jonny Evans has trained this week, which is better news than we had building up to Monday's game. Ashley Young is out – he got a sore whack on his ankle and is maybe out for two weeks. Other than that, we're in good shape in terms of player availability.
"Chris Smalling started running this week and Paul Scholes will start training with the first-team on Monday. He's done a fair bit in the last week or so and it will be a terrific boost to get his football intelligence back in the squad. He's been out for a few weeks now so he'll need a good bit of training with us.
"You know you're always going to get a hard game at Stoke. That will never change."

Sir Alex: We need a win at Stoke

Sir Alex Ferguson says his team needs to be victorious at the Britannia Stadium on Sunday to get the title charge back on track.
The derby-day reverse to Manchester City trimmed the
lead to 12 points with seven games to play, enough to cause a minor bout of the jitters for some fans in the wake of what happened at the end of last year's Barclays Premier League campaign.
Any trip to Stoke City is usually tough and the Potters are desperate for points themselves after slipping down the table. However, the United manager is determined to secure victory ahead of the midweek journey south to West Ham next Wednesday.
"We have a job to do," stated Sir Alex. "The incentives are there for ourselves in the sense that we've only got seven games left.
"The challenge is there for Stoke as well. I don't think they will go down but, nonetheless, they're in a precarious situation because, down the bottom of that league, you don't pick up a lot of points. I think they'll get enough to get out.
"I don't think we should look at our position in terms of being 12 points clear. What matters is winning on Sunday and we need to do that.
As we always do, we should just try to do our best. We have a job to do on Sunday and we need to do it."
The boss doesn't accept the view that Manchester City deserved to win Monday's top-of-the-table clash at Old Trafford.
"It's always disappointing to lose a derby," he conceded at his press conference. "There was nothing in it between the two teams.
"Possession-wise, they were better in the first half and we were better in the second half but lost two bad goals and you can't do that in derby games. It was a fantastic derby in the
sense of the intensity.
"The start of the game was absolutely brilliant. Both teams went for it and it was end-to-end. Both had half-chances of sorts but it ended up that Joe Hart had the only save in the
match to make. There was only one save in the whole match between the two goalkeepers. That gives you an idea about how close the game was.