Sir Alex Ferguson dismissed suggestions yesterday that opponents are scared of Manchester United, but maybe they should be. Having established a commanding lead in the Barclays Premier League, Ferguson believes that a third successive title is United’s to lose, but as he prepares to take his team to St James’ Park, it is clear that the manager has his sights set firmly on a bigger prize.

With the Club World Cup and Carling Cup secured, Ferguson said that he would be “satisfied” if the league were the only trophy of the three still up for grabs this season that his team won, but almost in the same breath, the United manager spoke of his “big desire” to retain the Champions League and, a little later, to succeed in the FA Cup. It was proof that Ferguson is warming to the idea of an unprecedented quintuple.

Beaten only once in their past 28 matches in all competitions this season, United are gathering the same momentum that they built en route to winning the league title, Champions League and FA Cup in 1999, when they went the final 33 games undefeated, but whereas that was achieved with largely the same 11 players, Ferguson knows that he can rotate regularly now and the results will not change.

That should be in evidence against Newcastle United, where Ferguson welcomes back Edwin van der Sar, Michael Carrick, Darren Fletcher, Dimitar Berbatov and Wayne Rooney, none of whom was in the squad for the Carling Cup final against Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday, as well as Park Ji Sung, who was an unused substitute.

“The only way we hope it ends is with us winning the big ones,” Ferguson said. “This is the best squad I have had. It was a smaller squad in 1999 — we only had 19 players available for the Champions League final [against Bayern Munich].”

Nicky Butt, the Newcastle midfield player, formerly of Old Trafford, said this week: “We could play out of our skins against United and still come away with nothing.” But Ferguson is not about to get complacent. With an FA Cup quarter-final away to Fulham on Saturday followed by the second leg of their Champions League first knockout round tie at home to Inter Milan four days later, the United manager claimed that “if you take your foot off the pedal you can get a real kick in the teeth”.