Manchester United's Gary Neville (right) challenges Benfica's Simao for the ball during their Champions League Group F football match in Manchester, northern England, yesterday. - Reuters

MANCHESTER, England (Reuters)

Alex Ferguson thanked Benfica goalscorer Nelson for bringing his Manchester United side to life in their 3-1 Champions League victory yesterday.

Ferguson's men trailed to Nelson's superb 27th-minute strike before hitting back with Nemanja Vidic's equaliser just before half-time and second-half goals from Ryan Giggs and French striker Louis Saha to reach the knockout phase.

Critical of the way United started against a Benfica side who had knocked them out at the same stage last season, Ferguson said: "I thought the game was just too slow to begin with.

"I don't think we play our best when we play with too much patience. There's a difference between patience with speed and patience with no speed - and we were the latter to be honest.

"I think we can thank Mr. Nelson for the goal because it woke everybody up - it woke our supporters up and woke our players up and we saw the real Manchester United.

"We played with speed and tenacity, and determination to turn the game around. We got a break right on half-time with the Vidic goal but it was certainly going to come, I feel.

"In the second half, we controlled the game. It was a very good performance from us bearing in mind we were a goal down."

The victory was also a fair reflection of United's stop-start campaign in Europe this season, with three straight wins followed by surprise defeats against Celtic and FC Copenhagen.

Looking ahead to the last 16, which starts in February, Ferguson felt his side had learned some important lessons along the way.

"From now on, every game is of real significance in terms of the quality of the opposition and the importance of the occasions — and I hope that helps us," he said.

"But the most important thing is that we can't take things for granted. We can't spurn chances the way we did at Copenhagen and Celtic. That's a warning."

Champions League results

Dynamo Kiev 2 Maxim Shatskikh (13,27)

Real Madrid 2 Ronaldo (86,88pen)

Olympique Lyon 1 Alou Diarra (12)

Steaua Bucharest 1 Nicolae Dica (2)

FC Copenhagen 3 Atiba Hutchinson (2),

Jesper Gronkjaer (27),

Marcus Allbaeck (57)

Celtic 1 Jiri Jarosik (75)

Manchester United 3 Nemanja Vidic (45+1),

Ryan Giggs (61),

Louis Saha (75)

Benfica 1 Nelson (27)

Porto 0

Arsenal 0

Hamburg SV 3 Besart Berisha (28),

Rafael van der Vaart (84),

Boubacar Sanogo (90)

CSKA Moscow 2 Ivica Olic (23pen),

Yuri Zhirkov (65)

AC Milan 0

Lille 2 Peter Odemwingie (7),

Abdul Kader Keita (67)

Anderlecht 2 Anthony Vanden Borre (38), Nicolas Frutos (63)

AEK Athens 2 Vassilis Lakis (75),

Bruno Cirillo (81)