Evergreen Man United winger Ryan Giggs rued his team’s second defeat in a row, but backed his team to bounce back.

The Welshman is adamant that the Red Devils remain in the driver's seat at the summit of the Barclays Premier League, regardless of Liverpool's result against Aston Villa and Chelsea's upset loss at the hands to Tottenham Hotspur.

"We didn't expect that result... it's better than them winning," said Giggs, after hearing of Chelsea's 0-1 loss. "We've got to do our own job, not worry about the teams around us. It's still in our hands."

However, Giggs is not taking the loss to the Cottagers lightly, especially as it confirmed back-to-back defeats in the league for the first time since the 2004-05 season.

"We're obviously disappointed with the result. After losing last weekend, we wanted to come here and put on a good performance," said the former Wales international. "We didn't do that in the first half - our passing was sloppy and our movement wasn't good enough. We just couldn't get it going, the tempo wasn't good."

Giggs said that Paul Scholes red card was a contributing factor to their defeat, but he had no argument with referee Phil Dowd's decision.

"Scholesy's sending off dealt us a double blow because we were down to ten men and Fulham were awarded a penalty. It was just instinct really - if you're on the goal line, you'll try and save it. He was unlucky to be the last man but it was a sending off."

Eventually United were able to regroup at the break and improve afterwards, thanks to some excellent goalkeeping from Edwin van der Sar who, Ryan admits, "kept us in the game."

"Going a goal behind and down to ten men, we had to arrange our shape a little bit differently. We came out and played a lot better in the second half. We were on top, we created some good chances and their keeper made a couple of good saves. Had one of those efforts gone in then we could have gone on to win it but it wasn't to be," added Giggs.

"Some of our lads now go away for the international break. Hopefully we won't have any injuries and we can get back on track against Villa."