Manchester United did what they do best, which is get the right result despite not being at their best as Robin Van Persie scored the only goal of the game against West Ham in the English Premier League.
That win kept United on top of the table, one point ahead of Manchester City, who beat Wigan 2-0, and West Ham manager Sam Allardyce believes Van Persie could be the difference maker in the title chase between the two Manchester clubs.
"Manchester United have lots of players who will have good spells and can come up trumps when they need them to," Allardyce said.
"Robin van Persie is a quality player and we have largely kept him quiet.
"But he will score 20 goals for Manchester United, maybe 30. In the end that is normally the difference."
Ferguson agreed with Allardyce in the Premier League chase being close, just like last season when the title was decided on goal difference.
"We've got the three points and are still ahead in the league," Ferguson told the club's official website. "Chelsea drawing tonight means it draws us away from them a little bit further.
"City are still on our tails so it's going to be a long season."
Ferguson acknowledged West Ham had given them a tough match, but felt his side should have killed the game off after taking the lead in the first minute.
"It was a hard night and we played a lot of good football but we never quite finished them off," he added. "West Ham fought really hard and made it difficult for us.
"It was a great start and hopefully you go on from such a great start but we never quite finished it off.
"They had skirmishes around the box and played high balls in there but you've got to defend them really well. They had a few blocked shots and that kind of thing but, in the main, we did defend very well. Evans, Smalling and Rafael, in particular, had fantastic nights.
"Rafael is maturing. He's 22 years of age but came here as a young kid and was in the first-team at 18. He made rash mistakes because he's such an enthusiastic boy but he's maturing and is learning from that."
