“It is a worry. You can't lose to the main contenders twice in a season. Towards the end of last season we beat Leeds and Chelsea away - it felt like we were beating the big teams again.
“That is something we definitely need to do this year.
"We can't give them a gap like last year. The thing we've got in our favour is we know we're capable of going on a winning run. If we do that we may get to other teams.
“Last Christmas we were supposedly out of the title race but in the end maybe we should have done a lot better than we did," he told United's official magazine.
"Everyone knows you can't let up against United because we keep going for 90 minutes and can score right up to the final whistle. I think that's about team spirit and the will to win and to work hard.”