Ryan Giggs has tried to lift Manchester United’s spirits by telling his team-mates to remember what they achieved last season.

United flew home from Rome today after their 2-0 Champions League final defeat by Barcelona and while Giggs is as disappointed as anyone, he insists there are moments to cherish from the season that has just ended.

"Great teams bounce back after big disappointments," Giggs said. "It has been a fantastic season and we must not forget that. We have achieved so much.

"All we have done is fall just short at the final hurdle in the Champions League. We are still a great team and we have great players in that dressing room. Next year we will come back stronger and look forward to the challenge."

United have drawn level with Liverpool on 18 league titles and Giggs knows that one more - which would be his twelfth - would allow United to overtake their rivals and also see them become the first side in English football to win the championship four years in a row.

"To win three Premier League titles on the trot is an unbelievable thing to do," Giggs said. "Now we must look to make it four."

Rio Ferdinand has also insisted that United can bounce back next season after Wednesday's disappointing display in the Stadio Olimpico. "If we had won it would have been an unbelievable end to the season but we knew if we lost we would be finishing on a low no matter what we had achieved before," the United defender said.

"We were not silly enough to think the garden will always be rosy. We are grown men. We can handle it. We just have to brush ourselves down and come back stronger.

"To play a team like Barcelona you need your A game. We didn't have it. We did well in those first 10 minutes. If we had scored then it might have been a different game. But we gave away two soft goals at crucial points in the game and didn't put away the chances we had.

"In a Champions League final, if you do not play well, either as individuals or a collective unit, you do not deserve to win. We need strength of character now but we have it in abundance."

United may have not lifted the European Cup this season, but they did win the Premier League title, the Carling Cup and the World Club Cup.