In congratulating new Premier League champions Manchester City, Sir Alex Ferguson reminded them that they have a long way to go before they can be considered Manchester United’s equals.

The United manager could not resist comparing his club’s reputation as serial winners with City, who have lifted the title for the first time in 44 years.

While Ferguson grudgingly acknowledged City had legitimate cause for celebration, he insisted the blue half of Manchester still had plenty to do before they could rival United’s history.

“They can go on as much as they like – that’s what you would expect – but the history of our club stands us aside,” Ferguson said.

“We don’t need to worry about that.

“I think we have a rich history, better than anyone and it’ll take them a century to get to our level of history.”

Even at 70, Ferguson is ready to be the man who tries to halt City’s attempt at repeat success next season.

“We accept challenges. We are good at that,” said Ferguson, after a 1-0 win at Sunderland on Sunday did not prove enough to claim top spot.

But he was gracious in his praise of City’s achievement, saying: “On behalf of Manchester United, I would like to say congratulations to our neighbours.

“It’s a fantastic achievement. This is not an easy league. It’s the hardest league in the world, and anybody that wins it deserves it.

“At the start of the season, if I remember correctly, I said 82 points would probably win the league this season and we are seven points ahead of that. But look, it doesn’t matter, we’ve lost the league.

“It is a cruel way to have the title ripped away, but I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my 25 years here.

“There will be times when we can sit back and say we did this wrong, we did that wrong, but 89 points would have won the league most seasons.”

Wayne Rooney scored United’s goal at Sunderland and, with City trailing to Queens Park Rangers, they believed they had won at the final whistle.

Thirteen seconds later, City scored their winner and the championship had crossed the city.

Ferguson said: “All we had to do was concentrate on our job and that’s what we did, but you are going to get certain types of reaction from the crowd.

“We knew five minutes’ extra time was being played at City.

“Our game had three minutes’ stoppage time and you don’t know what can happen in the extra two minutes, but they got that break and won the game.

“We should take credit because of the fact we had so many injuries and coped with them very well.

`We have some young players and they have now experienced what happened here today.

“Hopefully in seven or eight years they will be at Manchester United and the experience is good for them – even if it’s a bad one.”