Jose Mourinho should be warned against underestimating Manchester United's powers of recovery. Arsene Wenger is still haunted by the way Arsenal allowed a seven-point lead to slip three years ago - "I'm still not sure what happened" - and Newcastle United fans will never be allowed to forget the manner in which Kevin Keegan's team blew the league in 1996, having been 12 points clear.

"It will be remembered as the title Newcastle threw away but, for me, it was more the fact that United won it," recalls Rob Lee, the then Newcastle midfielder. "It was down to the way they played during the run-in and the brilliance of Eric Cantona and even more so Peter Schmeichel.

"Without those two I'm sure there would still be street parties going on in Newcastle. They came to our place and Schmeichel almost single-handedly kept us at bay. We couldn't beat him and then Cantona broke our hearts with the only goal."

Newcastle have never quite recovered and the same could be said of Aston Villa after cracking under the pressure at the end of the 1992-'93 season. "Unlike the United and Chelsea situation we were quite close all the way through," recalls the former Villa defender Steve Staunton. "We'd beaten United and drawn with them so, one to 11, we knew we were as good as them, if not better."

Villa crumbled, winning only four out of their last 11 games. The white flag was raised and Ferguson cashed in with the first of his eight league titles. "They had that little bit of luck," Staunton says. "They were fortunate to have seven minutes of stoppage time against Sheffield Wednesday when Steve Bruce scored twice to turn the game round. You need a little bit of luck, no matter how good you are. They got it and we didn't and the rest is history. Look what's happened to United since and what's happened to Villa."