Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson has claimed that Mancini’s side is lucky that they are only 12 points behind.
Mancini had earlier claimed that United were lucky to be 12 points ahead of Manchester City.
“He’s lucky they are only 12 points behind,” said Ferguson.
“Scoring late goals isn’t lucky – we’ve only been doing it for 25 years. It’s a terrible habit.”
Fergie believes that after losing on goal difference last season, his side will hammer the ‘noisy neighbours’ to take their revenge.
United are yet to play Real Madrid in the Champions League on Tuesday, but Ferguson believes that it is more important to concentrate on Norwich as they have to increase their lead over the last year BPL title winners.
“The league games are even more important because we don’t want to give our immediate opponents an advantage,” said Ferguson.
“That accentuates it more for me and that’s why I place so much importance on Norwich because it’s a game we must win.
“The similarities to 1999 are that our FA Cup run was a really hard one and our European ties were really hard.
“We were in a group with Barcelona and Bayern Munich, then we got a quarter-final against Inter Milan and a semi-final against Juventus.
“This year the group stage was okay but we got Real Madrid straight up.
“In the FA Cup we’ve had Premier League teams all the time, which we also experienced in 1999.
“I don’t think the difficult games will be a problem.
“I think we’re looking forward to them, knowing we have to be at our best, as we were in 1999.
“The big difference is we have a stronger squad now than we did back then.”
United will play the Canaries on Saturday followed by Real Madrid at home on Tuesday.
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