Daniel Taylor at Old Trafford
Man United 0 Man City 0
The standing ovation that Alan Smith received - why? - for the 10th red card of his tempestuous career was replaced by the sound of clanking seats in the final few minutes yesterday.
There was once a time when fans never dared leave Old Trafford early but those days began to feel increasingly distant on another galling afternoon for Manchester United, one that prompted the first admission from Alex Ferguson that the championship might be beyond his misfiring team.
This was the fifth time in their 12 Premiership fixtures that Ferguson's expensively assembled side have failed to score. To borrow a phrase from Jose Mourinho, Manchester City parked a bus in their own goalmouth. They then put a clamp on each tyre and threw the keys down the nearest drain. Yet, even in Ruud van Nistelrooy's absence, Ferguson was entitled to be dismayed they could not overcome a side with so many injuries.
"With that sort of form we're not good enough in terms of the championship," Ferguson, usually that fierce protector of his own, glowered afterwards. "It's not championship form and I can't excuse anyone at the club for that. Nine parts of our game is good but the 10th part, the most important one, is just not there. It's not good enough."
United are now 11 points behind Chelsea and nine from Arsenal and, opting for the scattergun as his choice of weapon, Ferguson then made the bizarre claim that Graham Poll had failed to award his side a penalty as some sort of retribution for the dubious one that Wayne Rooney had conjured out of Sol Campbell a fortnight earlier. In total, there were five separate occasions when United turned longingly towards the referee, and Poll misjudged at least one, when Antoine Sibierski all but rugby-tackled Louis Saha to the floor from an early corner.
"We feel they were clear penalties," said Ferguson. "But we're being penalised for getting a penalty against Arsenal; there was no way the referee was going to give us a penalty here. Someone would have to be hit with an axe before a penalty was given. We just have to suffer and get on."
Besides, the real culprits here were United's forwards. Ignoring, for one moment, Smith's ignominious contribution, Ferguson was entitled to reflect on the statistics and wonder how the 134th Manchester derby had not finished with one of its more emphatic scorelines.
United were calculated as having 82% of possession at one stage, and 67% in total, with only 7% of the game played in the third of the pitch directly in front of Roy Carroll.
Keegan had half-a-dozen players missing and felt no need to apologise as he reflected upon
their total of precisely zero shots on target throughout the entire match. Instead, this was a day when Keegan's defenders excelled and the likes of Shaun Wright-Phillips and Nicolas Anelka had to make do with bit-part contributions.
Lesser players might have crumbled under the pressure but Danny Mills, Richard Dunne and Sylvain Distin showed themselves as men of substance, by heroic challenges, brave interceptions or the countless times they headed the ball away from beneath their own crossbar.
Stephen Jordan, a raw but talented left-back, epitomised their resistance. His goal-line clearance to deny Saha a fourth-minute goal was the outstanding moment of the match, although it was not the only time David James was indebted to one of his colleagues: the goalkeeper even gave Steve McManaman a kiss on the forehead after he had turned Smith's overhead kick off the line.
The greatest concern for Ferguson might not have been the quality of United's finishing but their ability to deliver the killer pass. Cristiano Ronaldo's crosses seldom beat the first defender and the same applied to Ryan Giggs when he came off the bench for Liam Miller, once again ineffectual. Ferguson's assessment of the penalties smacked of paranoia and any remaining sympathy all but disappeared when he chose to defend the indefensible Smith. The reality was that either of Smith's studs-up lunges on Paul Bosvelt and Dunne were so reckless either could have justified a straight red card, yet Ferguson still felt the need to complain.