Neville Hails Relentless Reds

Gary Neville has hailed United's winning mentality ahead of the Manchester derby in his official ambassadors' column for United Review.

The former Reds skipper believes talk of a power shift towards the blue half of the city has been proved to be premature and is quick to pay tribute to Sir Alex Ferguson for driving the team to a 15-point lead at the top of the Barclays Premier League.

After the devastating finale to last season, United's response has been emphatic to set things up nicely for City's visit to Old Trafford on Monday evening.

"In some ways, that final day was as low as it could get for us [barring being the team City beat on the last day to clinch it]," writes Neville. "Conversely, for City, it was almost as good as it could get and you have to ask: was that City’s mountain? Under Sir Alex Ferguson, United are never at the top of the mountain – there is no mountain, no end in sight, it’s just a continuous, relentless charge year after year. There’s never a feeling of ‘we’ve done it’.

"No-one should be surprised by our response – the manager’s been doing it for most of his 26 years in charge. The response of Sir Alex and his players to adversity is always top class.

"If you check the newspaper archives from the last day of last season, all the reports spoke of Manchester City’s domination, and how they were going to win the championship for the next four years. If I read ‘power shift’ once, then I must have read it a thousand times in the space of a week last May.

"Those reports misunderstood Manchester United. Here is a manager and players who don’t understand phrases like ‘power shift’. They just make them more determined to ram such phrases back down people’s throats.

"Everybody was heralding a new era and asking if United’s dominance was over. Fast forward to today and there’s a 15-point lead."