Michael Carrick says that how the other teams chasing the Premier League title do has no effect on how Manchester United approach a game.
United saw Arsenal and Chelsea earn wins over Hull City and West Ham United respectively on Saturday to overtake them at the top of the league, however Carrick and United responded in the right way by beating Fulham 3-0 on Sunday, with two goals from Wayne Rooney and another from Diimitar Berbatov.
And midfielder Carrick says there is no psychological knock-on effect from playing before or after rivals for the title.
"It's not really too much of a factor," he told MUTV. "It's nice before the game if you see them drop points, but it really doesn't affect us once we're at the ground and we go out on the pitch. You get into game mode and focus on winning.
"If you apply too much pressure too early then you start doing things that maybe you shouldn't. We just believe in ourselves. The confidence and belief's there at the moment that we're scoring good goals and scoring plenty of them. Hopefully that maintains through this part of the season.
"It is very tight. I'm sure it's going to go down to the wire. There are eight games to go and it's just really about us winning as many as we can, and hopefully that'll be enough."