Ferguson has also made it clear that once the player’s agent, Pini Zahavi, returns from his latest business trip, he expects the situation to be resolved immediately.

The massed ranks of Red Devils fans who embarked on the long trip to south-east London for yesterday’s 4-0 win at Charlton made their feelings on the matter clear – chanting for the 26-year-old defender to “sign your deal” during the comfortable victory.

However, afterwards the United manager maintained: “We don’t want to make a monster out of this thing (Ferdinand’s deal).”

Ferguson said on MUTV: “You can maybe push players into these things and you can make it worse.

“He knows we want him to sign and that’s important, and he knows the fans want him to sign, so we don’t want to be shoving the lad into something he is not sure about. If he’s not sure then he should take time – but that most important thing is we want him to do it quickly.”

The new deal was put to Ferdinand last week, and the England centre-half claims he can understand why supporters are becoming frustrated, and maintains he wants to extend his time at United.

He said in the build-up to yesterday’s match: “My agent is out of the country at the moment and that has slowed things down a touch. We met last week and things were going reasonably well, so hopefully it will be speeded up in the coming days.

“I do want to stay at Manchester United. I have said that from the beginning. I am happy here and I want to sign, but sometimes these things take time.”

Paul Scholes and Darren Fletcher were both on target before the break at The Valley yesterday, with Alan Smith and Wayne Rooney completing the scoring midway through the second period as United kept up the pressure on Arsenal in the race for runners-up spot.

United still need the Gunners – who play relegation battlers West Brom tonight - to drop points if they are to secure automatic qualification for the Champions League, but Ferguson insisted his men will not take their foot off the gas in the run-in to the season and next mont’s FA Cup final showdown with Arsene Wenger’s side in Cardiff.

“You saw here what we are capable of. We want to take this form into the cup final now,” reflected Ferguson.

“We have three games left in the league and we want to perform like that and get the results and look forward to the final, whichshould be terrific.”