Sir Alex Ferguson insisted it’s not time to panic despite admitting Manchester United had handed the Premier League title initiative back to Manchester City.

A stunned Ferguson saw his side suffer a comprehensive 3-0 defeat at Newcastle, condemning them to back-to-back league losses for the first time in 10 months to remain in second, three points adrift of Roberto Mancini’s leaders, while holding the same advantage over Tottenham Hotspur, in third.

The Manchester rivals meet in the FA Cup this weekend, but Ferguson’s thoughts remain on his attempts to stretch City’s 44-year wait for the English top flight crown, and the Scot said: “Of course it is advantage City. We had our opportunity, they played and won, so it’s advantage to them.

“The one plus for me is we had two or three players back, and maybe that can make the difference. It’s not a time to panic, we have the patience and experience to cope.”

Ferguson insists his defending champions’ title know-how will help them in the long-run this season, and he added: “Losing a game down the years, you don’t want it to happen, but it does, and you see that with some of the results lately. But we’ll take the show on the road, particularly in March and April.”

Ferguson added: “Newcastle have very strong lads up front, they’re very aggressive and a real handful. But the story of the game was two fantastic strikes. There was no chance anybody would have saved them, they were two fantastic strikes.”

Newcastle manager Alan Pardew said: “It’s a great result, we stayed on top of United, and didn’t let them play.

“We were due a win at home against one of the big Premier League sides, but now we’ve done that, we mustn’t get carried away.”