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On the eve of his 23rd season at Old Trafford, Sir Alex Ferguson responded to John Terry's claim that Manchester United had peaked by predicting further improvement and making global domination his aim. Some regard the Club World Cup as an obstacle to United's real ambitions this season but, with the signing of Dimitar Berbatov from Tottenham Hotspur believed to be imminent, Ferguson suggested that the title of “best team on the planet” would suit United nicely.

The Club World Cup is one of the challenges that arose as a result of United's Champions League final victory over Chelsea in Moscow in May and Ferguson is already looking forward to the trip to Tokyo in December.

He was mistaken in one sense yesterday when he claimed that United were already the only English team to be crowned world champions - the title to which they beat Palmeiras in 1999 was the Intercontinental Cup, which was superseded that very season by the expanded tournament for which they will compete this season - but, surveying a fixture list that is already looking congested, he expressed great excitement about a season that Terry, the Chelsea captain, has suggested will be an anticlimax.

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“Well that's a challenge for us then, isn't it?” Ferguson said when informed of Terry's assertion that United “don't have another level to go to”. “I would like to think that, with young players like Anderson, Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney, there's improvement there all right. That's the most natural thing you can say about our club. These players do have a capacity to improve. I'm optimistic because I see no deterioration. We have to protect the old dinosaurs - Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Gary Neville - but I'm expecting a natural progression from the younger ones.

“We do take these tournaments seriously, absolutely. When we won the Club World Championship in 1999, for some reason it seemed to have been passed over. But we are the only British team to have won it. Liverpool tried five times [in fact it is three]. I can't understand why we did not get the praise or the publicity that we deserved for that. To win a world championship halfway around the world and beat the best team in South America at that time, Palmeiras, was a great achievement.”

Ferguson said that the downside of the tournament and of the European Super Cup, in which they will play Zenit St Petersburg in Monaco on August 29, was the postponement of two domestic matches, which will have to be played later in the season. The rescheduling of the home game against Fulham, which had been due to be played on August 30, means that the Old Trafford faithful may have to wait until the fixture against Bolton Wanderers on September 27 to see the Premier League champions again, with tough away matches against Portsmouth, Liverpool and Chelsea to come in the meantime.

Encouragingly for United, Berbatov is likely to be on board sooner rather than later amid conflicting rumours over whether the Bulgaria forward will feature for Tottenham away to Middlesbrough this afternoon. A deal in the region of £28million is moving closer to completion, with Berbatov having initiated a meeting yesterday with Daniel Levy, the Tottenham chairman, and Damien Comolli, the sporting director, to state his determination to join United.

Ferguson also revealed that Ronaldo is ahead of schedule in his recovery from ankle surgery last month. The Portugal forward could return in time for the home match against Bolton.