Dejection for United fans as the news breaks

Blues were seconds away from writing another disastrous chapter in their history when Aguero snatched the title from Manchester United

After Manchester City snatched the title from their neighbours in the last seconds of the season, Sir Alex Ferguson admitted: “It’s a cruel way to lose.”

United were champions for 13 seconds after the final whistle at Sunderland before Sergio Aguero scored City’s winner.

It was a repeat of the 1999 Champions League final, only this time United saw City score twice in “Fergie Time” to win.

“It’s a cruel way, but I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my 25 years – most of them are great moments,” said the United boss.

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“We’ve won the league title three times on the last day and today we nearly did it.

“When they said five minutes to go, I said to Mick Phelan that if they equalise late on, I think we’ll be in trouble because of the impetus of scoring late on.

“Five minutes injury time seemed a lot – I don’t know the circumstances of it – but QPR played with 10 men. That was ­probably a killer Having to play with 10 men for such a long time.”

Fergie reacted with a shrug when he heard City had won. “We lost the league and there is nothing we can do,” he said.

“I would like to say on behalf of everyone at United, congratulations to Manchester City. Anyone who wins the league deserves to win it because it’s the hardest league in the world.

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“We know that because, as we’ve experienced today, we’ve lost on goal difference.

“We conducted ourselves in the right way. It was a good performance and I have no recriminations about our season at all.

“Yes, 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.”

Sunderland boss Martin O’Neill backed Fergie to bounce back.

“He will not want to let Manchester City become dominant,” he said. “He will do something about it.”