Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United manager, continued his war of words with Rafael Benítez, his bitter adversary, last night as the fight for the Barclays Premier League title grows more hostile by the day.

Benítez reacted to Ferguson’s claim that the winner of the Champions League quarter-final between Liverpool and Chelsea would represent the main challengers to United for the championship by claiming that the Scot was “a little bit scared” and “talks too much about other teams”.

But Ferguson responded by insinuating that the Liverpool manager had been guilty of losing his focus by firing barbs in his direction before such a big game, with the United manager apparently taking delight from the fact that the attack had backfired, with Chelsea winning the first leg 3-1 at Anfield.

“If you ask me a question about other teams I’ll give you an opinion,” Ferguson said. “There’s no fault in that. Arsène Wenger [the Arsenal manager] was talking about Manchester United a couple of weeks ago [saying we were untouchable], which I tried to dampen down as much as I could because I know the dangers of that.

“He was asked a question and gave a fair answer. The interesting thing as far as Rafa Benítez is concerned is that he’s got a European tie and he’s talking about Alex Ferguson. Fantastic. I didn’t know I was that important.”

Asked whether he felt that he had got under Benítez’s skin, Ferguson could not stop himself smirking before saying: “I have no more comment to make.” The spat was the latest in a round of increasingly bitter verbal jousting between the pair, which began in January when Benítez accused Ferguson of intimidating referees during a wide-ranging, calculated attack.

All of which gives added spice to today’s games, when United may again find themselves knocked off the top by the time they face Sunderland at the Stadium of Light should Liverpool overcome Blackburn Rovers at Anfield in the lunchtime kick-off.

Ferguson said he hoped that his team’s 2-2 draw at home to Porto on Tuesday had proved “a watershed” and that United would rediscover their best form, but the manager could not resist taking more thinly veiled pot-shots at Liverpool by claiming that Chelsea would be just as much as a threat after their impressive victory at Anfield.

“Chelsea will be absolutely buoyed up,” Ferguson said. “You saw the celebrations at the end. They knew it was an emphatic result. They’ll be flying at the moment. They played very well.

Ferguson also claimed he would be happy for the title race to go down to the final day of the season like last year, but he hopes to have it wrapped up before then. “I’m not even thinking about our game in hand. We’ve got a one-point lead and we want to make sure that exists after [today] and next week and the week after that. Talk of an extra game in hand is a false situation because you’ve still got to play it.”