Mancini: City still better than United

Roberto Mancini has insisted his Manchester City side are still better than Manchester United despite falling to a 3-2 loss on Sunday.

Mancini watched his team fall at home to a last-minute Robin van Persie free-kick, which completed a dismal week for the Etihad faithful as they also crashed out of Europe, finishing bottom of their Champions League group.

Nevertheless, Mancini has claimed City’s first home defeat for two years in the Premier League is a mere setback and he believes there is still plenty to play for this season.

“Things aren’t going well but I know we will still have a great year,” he told reporters.

“United have more experience but we have a much better team and play much better football. Six points is not a big difference with 24 games still to play.

“We need to try to win five or six games in a row to try and reduce the gap.”

Mancini was happy with City’s performance against United on Sunday and urged his players to keep fighting for the title after winning the 2011/12 championship in the last moments of the final day of the season against QPR.

“Even though we lost on Sunday, we showed that we are a really strong team and can win the title again,” he said.

“We were unlucky. We dominated long spells of that game — and did not deserve to lose.

“The Premier League is the best league in the world at the moment and as we know from winning last year, you can lose a game in the last second.”