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Manchester United’s young players were too "anxious" to impress in last night’s 1-0 home defeat to Besiktas, Sir Alex Ferguson has admitted.

United missed out on a chance to top their Champions League qualification group and saw a 23-match unbeaten home record go up in smoke at Old Trafford last night.

Ferguson had selected a young side to play the Turkish champions, who won courtesy of a deflected Rodrigo Tello strike, including Gabriel Obertan, 20, Danny Welbeck, 19, and Federico Macheda, 18.

"[The young players] were anxious to do well and sometimes young players don’t know how to slow down and maybe we played too quickly at times," Ferguson said.

"But that’s not their fault – that’s a natural part of improving and developing a young player. In the main they showed great ability."

Speaking to MUTV he added: "They all showed potential and playing in these games gives them incentive to improve themselves. They know they’ll get that opportunity at this club. The club’s history is based on producing young players who can excite and these players can all excite."

Gary Neville, at 34 by far the most experienced United player on the pitch last night, said after the match the Red Devils deserved to lose.

"We didn’t convert our chances, the goalkeeper made a few good saves, some of our decision-making was poor, the last pass often wasn’t good, some of the crossing wasn’t up to scratch… the play in the last third wasn’t decisive enough and we didn’t take our chances," he said.

"Usually we’d expect to score a goal in 96 minutes of football at Old Trafford but we didn’t do that."

United travel to Germany on December 8th knowing at least a point against Wolfsburg will secure top spot in group B.