Soccer:Manchester United need to be less "cavalier" in their approach, manager Alex Ferguson said on the eve of Saturday's Premier League game against Norwich City where the potent strikeforce of Wayne Rooney and Javier Hernandez could return.
The pair missed Tuesday's 3-3 home draw with Basel in the Champions League as Rooney was recovering from a hamstring problem and Hernandez from a dead leg but attacking matters were not Ferguson's chief concern today.
"We're too cavalier at the moment," complained the manager. "We have to balance both things and that's why it's called a team."
Unbeaten United have scored 22 goals in six league games so far and are top of the table on goal difference from neighbours Manchester City. The Premier League champions scored two quickfire goals against Basel and appeared to be cruising to victory but a shaky defence cost them as they found themselves 3-2 down before Ashley Young's last-gasp goal rescued a draw.
"People say our performance was careless and we under-estimated our opponents and maybe there's an element of truth in that," Ferguson said. "I certainly wasn't happy, even in the first half I could sense we were too relaxed and could have lost three goals in the first half.
"We could have scored goals as well but were too cavalier. We're attacking in the way we're playing at the moment and people can enjoy it but we have to do better defensively."
He was encouraged by the fact that his team always look like creating and scoring, which will be helped by the return of Hernandez and Rooney, who has already scored nine league goals this season and is back from injury sooner than expected.
"Wayne and Javier Hernandez will be fit for tomorrow. They trained yesterday very well and I was pleased with that," said Ferguson, who had originally said Rooney could face a few weeks out when he was injured before last week's game at Stoke City.
"Jonny Evans also comes back, hopefully that will help us in the defensive part as we're certainly changing the back four at the moment."
