But he also insists that United are not in a crisis at the moment, far from it. The 3-0 defeat at the hands of the Magpies was just one of those games in which they got the breaks and United didn’t do enough with the possession they had.
Ferguson said: "Advantage to them (Man City), of course.
"(But) It's not a time to panic - we have the experience to cope with that.
"We started reasonably well. But they scored a fantastic goal and it really picked everyone up in the stadium.
"The second was a killer for us. We didn't make enough of our possession.
"Ba and Shoal Ameobi are very strong, big aggressive lads.
"They didn't tear us apart, but they were a handful.
"The story of the game was they had two fantastic strikes which put them in the driving seat."