Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson remains upbeat over Europa League battle with Athletic Bilbao We've got the same against Bilbao because Phil Jones and Chris Smalling are unavailable and that's sort of a door slamming in the face again, but we keep carrying on and it points to a resilience in the team that's really admirable. We've kept the pressure on City. We got a break at the weekend and we hope we don't slip up and we win all our remaining games. Our run in on paper looks OK, but you have to win them on the field and we've done that the last few seasons very well. The players have done exceptionally well and it's an achievement we're still hanging in there in the league and we're still in this game. I think the players really believe that. Despite the brave words, history does not favour United. On the two occasions they have attempted a comeback after a first-leg defeat at Old Trafford, against Bayern Munich in 2001 and AC Milan four years later, they have lost the away leg as well. Five years ago, United did overturn a first-leg deficit, beating Roma 7-1, but that came on home soil and their task is not made any easier by Bilbao, who are unbeaten in 12 games at San Mames. Even a 2-1 defeat at Osasuna in La Liga last weekend has not done anything to deflate the confidence in Marcelo Bielsa's exciting young side, but Ferguson will ignore another depressing statistic that shows his team have only won two of their last 19 games in Spain. "We always feel if we get to this stage of the season, we're expected to win [every game] and I expect to win," added Ferguson. We've got to bank on the fact we will play a lot better than we did at Old Trafford and I'm sure we will. We saw plenty of evidence last week of an emerging team that has the prospect of doing very, very well. It was an outstanding performance by them, their energy was unbelievable. They had the highest stats, in terms of distance run, of any team at Old Trafford in the last 10 years. That's a great credit to, not just their energy, but their desire to do well. They had great motivation to do that coming to Old Trafford. Whether they can maintain that seven days later, we will have to wait and see. We will also have to wait to see whether Berbatov is involved after Ferguson admitted he is likely to move the Bulgarian on in the summer. From the chats I've had with him, at his age of 31, he is looking for first-team football," he said. I can't guarantee him that and it's something we'll have to look at in the summer. It might lead him to look elsewhere.