Rio relishes Reds' miserly streak

Rio Ferdinand insisted clean sheets are as important as goals after United’s 6-0 romp over Newcastle on Saturday.

The towering centre-back scored the Reds’ fourth goal against the Magpies, but he took greater pride from his side’s imperious defending throughout the match as United registered a 13th clean sheet in 22 league games.

“It’s nice to get on the goalscoring sheet, but more important for me was the clean sheet,” he told Setanta Sports. “If we keep clean sheets then we’ve got people like Ronny (Cristiano Ronaldo) upfront who can score us goals.”

The Reds’ canter, allied to Arsenal’s failure to beat Birmingham, saw the champions move back to the top of the Premier League. United’s form augurs well in the ongoing title race, and Ferdinand is keen to keep his focus in-house.

“We’ll have to wait and see, we just concentrate on Manchester United,” he said. “If we keep clean sheets and score the odd goal here and there then we know we’re going to be in with a shout at the end of the season.

“It’s too early to say whether we’re going to stay there or not, we have to get our consistency going and make sure we’re performing like we did today and we’ll be alright.”