Silencing the noisy neighbours

ALEX FERGUSON depicted himself as a victim of a loud neighbour but his reaction to the Michael Owen goal that settled the most exciting derby game of recent times showed just how concerned he is about keeping up with the Jones’s.

City dominated the possession in a first half that finished 1-1 and after Darren Fletcher had scored his second to make it 3-2, Craig Bellamy tore past Rio Ferdinand and slipped the ball past Ben Foster from the narrowest of angles.

But five minutes and 26 seconds into what was supposed to be four minutes of added time, Ryan Giggs picked out Michael Owen and the forward stabbed a trademark finish low past Shay Given to spark wild celebrations that included Ferguson doing his awkward dance behind Gary Neville down the touchline towards the City fans, before Bellamy slapped a pitch invader.

While that was hardly neighbourly, neither was City substitute Javier Garrido being struck by a missile aimed at Carlos Tevez as he headed for the tunnel at the interval. Hughes questioned where the extra added time had come from and Ferguson felt that it came from the celebrations after Bellamy’s late equaliser.

Ferguson has dismissed City all summer, insisting all the noise surrounding them is unjustified and claiming that only the likes of Chelsea and Liverpool are their rivals and although he was in bullish mood afterwards, claiming that United could have won 6-0, his touchline jig told a different story.

“Sometimes you’ve got a noisy neighbour and you have to live with it,” Ferguson said.

“You can’t do anything about them and they keep on making noise. But what you can do, and what we’ve shown, is that you can get on with your life, put your television on, turn it up a bit louder and the players showed their playing power and that’s the best answer of all.

“We could have won by six or seven and the fact we made the mistakes probably made it the best derby game of all time and would we have rather won 6-0 or had the greatest derby game of all time? I’d rather have won 6-0. We made three horrendous mistakes you wouldn’t even half-associate with our team.”

Hughes was clearly baffled by Ferguson’s statements. “They seemed quite excitable at the end which shows you what this win means to them,” he said.

“It was reminiscent of some of the scenes with Brian Kidd and Sir Alex Ferguson in days gone by and I saw Gary Neville running on the pitch like a lunatic.

” It’s a game we can take many positives out of and we are not going to go away.”

Even in defeat, City showed they can make that statement come true.

After they were undone by a quick throw from Ryan Giggs, who was involved in each of United’s goals in his 30th derby, which allowed Wayne Rooney to burst into the box and stab past Given with less than two minutes gone, Tevez, who started after a fortnight out with a knee problem, forced a fumble from the unconvincing Ben Foster and squared for Gareth Barry to squeeze past the retreating Nemanja Vidic.

Darren Fletcher beat Barry in the air to head in a Giggs cross but, starting out on the left flank, Bellamy cut inside John O’Shea and placed a shot as far into Foster’s top left corner as was possible.

City’s lack of presence in attack really began to tell in the second period as they were simply unable to get out of their half and poor finishing from Dimitar Berbatov and inspired goalkeeping from Given was all that kept the scores level.

With 10 minutes remaining Fletcher outjumped Kolo Toure from Giggs’ free-kick and looked to have won it before Bellamy took advantage of slack defending by Rio Ferdinand to outpace the England defender and delay his shot until Foster had gone to ground to slide in from a narrow angle.

Whether there should have been or not, there was still time for Giggs to pick out Owen, who held off Micah Richards and slid past Given to seal the most dramatic of victories.

After last week’s 4-2 win over Arsenal, City have shown they are the real deal but Ferguson was grateful that Owen did exactly what he came to United to do.

He said: “His positional play, his first touch and his finish were magnificent. They were world class. With 15 minutes to go with the game going to be in their penalty box, there’s no-one better than Michael Owen.”

True enough but this is just the start of what is sure to be a thrilling battle for dominance of Manchester and the Premier League.

- MAN OF THE MATCH: Craig Bellamy (Manchester City). Just shaded it from Fletcher. Despite all the money spent this summer, the Welshman has established himself as a key man and after scoring City’s stunning second, he kept his cool to pinch a third.

- Referee: Martin Atkinson (Yorkshire). Got the balance right with his yellow cards but faces questions over his time-keeping.

- MATCH RATING: ***** It is rare matches are able to live up to their build-up but this contest managed that with plenty to spare. City deserved a point but United just had enough thanks to Owen’s superb finish. Could that be the story of the season?