Sir Alex Ferguson believes last week's humbling by Liverpool has delivered a timely wake-up call to his Manchester United players to not get complacent.

The 4-1 win was Liverpool's best result at Old Trafford since the 1930s and Ferguson said it was a reminder for the league leaders not to get carried away.

"For weeks we have had to listen to eulogies and compliments about how great this side is, and I have kept deflecting that and saying how tough this league is," Ferguson, whose side travel to Fulham tomorrow, said.

"Everyone likes to read good things about themselves, particularly young players like to think they are the bees' knees all the time, but football's a game that comes back and bites you quite severely as we found out last week.

"That defeat was a reminder about how difficult this league is and in a way that will help us. We all now realise that there is a lot of work to be done. It's put us in a position to say let's get the show on the road again."

Ferguson said his players had brought the Liverpool defeat on themselves to a large extent, and that was an issue they had focused on in training since. "It's hard to defend a 4-1 defeat and we have to be absolutely clear in our mind about the reasons why it happened, and we are. It was self-inflicted and it came from mistakes we don't expect our players to make.

"You get situations like this in the run-in and the good thing is that I am used to it and quite a few of my players are used to it."

Ferguson has also expressed his displeasure at the FA Cup semi-final against Everton taking place at Wembley, saying playing it there detracted from the mythical status of the stadium. "Some fantastic players in our country have never played at Wembley, and that's going back through the ages, and to me it's taking away from the glamour of getting to the final," he said. "But there's no way out of it, we know the reasons and we just have to get on with it."