Manchester United's form is hardly disastrous, says Gary Neville

Gary Neville has robustly denied that Manchester United's faltering performances amount to anything more serious than a blip and criticised the way "everyone treats it like a disaster" when the team have a bad result. Neville was part of the United side that was eliminated from the FA Cup by Leeds United, of League One, eight days ago, the first time they have been knocked out of the competition in the third round, or by lower-league opposition, in the Sir Alex Ferguson era. The Premier League champions have already lost five times in the league, and are having to operate with newly imposed financial restraints because of the debts accrued by their American owners. Neville, however, believes the Leeds defeat "wasn't the end of the world" and that it has been exaggerated because of the intense media focus that falls on Old Trafford. "It's been the same over the past 10 to 15 years," Neville said. "Every time we have a bad defeat people say we are in crisis. Sometimes even when we draw a game people will write that we are having a crisis. It's part and parcel of playing at our club and it doesn't annoy us because we accept what comes with playing for Manchester United. Everyone treats it like a disaster and it brings criticism upon us which other clubs don't get. But you expect that if you play for United. "We are placed on a pedestal for so long with our level of performance that when we drop below those standards people will willingly criticise and, to be honest, we deserve criticism for the Leeds game. We just didn't perform and it wasn't acceptable. To lose in the FA Cup to a team two divisions below us is extremely disappointing for Manchester United and very unusual. It was a performance well below our best and a bad day for us. Leeds were sharper, quicker and better on the day, and we can have no complaints. We want to get games like that out of our system as quickly as possible." United are in Qatar on a four-day break to get away from the frozen pitches at their own training ground and the club have been boosted by Edwin van der Sar's return to training . The goalkeeper had been on compassionate leave since his wife, Annemarie van Kesteren, suffered a brain haemorrhage on 23 December but the latest medical tests have shown no permanent damage and Van der Sar has flown to Doha to be with the rest of his team-mates as they prepare for Saturday's home game against Burnley. "You can go back through the past 20 years and there have been times when people have lost faith or started questioning things," Neville continued. "As players, we just get on with it. We never get too high in moments of great victory and we never get too low in moments of defeat. We have always kept level heads. "People are asking questions about us now but if we'd beaten Leeds nobody would be asking those questions. It was a bad defeat last week and I'm not going to brush it under the carpet, but let's put things in perspective. We're still second in the league, still in the Champions League and we've got the Carling Cup semi-final coming up. "We've had bad days before and we just have to come through it. It could be the best thing that happens to us, although it doesn't feel like it now. But if we try and make the most of the bad situation then we could say it has given us some free weekends, which enables us to prepare better for Champions League games and league games. That's all we can do now – try and take the positives out of a bad situation. "A lot of our players have been around for a long time and we've had bad defeats in the past. We have been knocked out of the Champions League in the group stages, we have finished third in the league – people forget that the players at our club, with few exceptions, have suffered these types of moments before. "We don't panic in these moments and we've got a manager who won't let us panic. We look forward to the next game and think we can win it, simple as that. We play for Manchester United and we go on to the field believing we can win the match regardless of what happened in the match before."