Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini has refused to give up on his team's quest to clinch the Premier League title.

The current English champions are 12 points adrift of leaders Manchester United in the table, but following yesterday's 4-0 win over Leeds United in the FA Cup, Mancini is "confident" that they can push United to the end.

"I hope it can happen that we start to win in the Premier League again," the Daily Star quotes Mancini as saying. "We should always be confident in ourselves, even when we're 12 points behind at this moment.

"We lost seven points in three games and this can happen for any team. But now [United] play a lot of games. At this moment they deserve to stay there because they have been better than us and scored more goals than us."

City's next league fixture is against Chelsea on Sunday.