United 4 - 3 City

• On the balance of the second half, we probably didn't deserve the point that I thought Craig Bellamy's equaliser had brought us. We were under siege for the whole thirty-eight minutes between Bellamy's two strikes. Were it not for Dimitar Berbatov and Shay Given conspiring to keep the score first at 2-2 and then 3-2 we could have been swamped. Imagine what Adebayor (who cost £5m less than Berbatov) would have done with those headed chances. All this is a way of saying that a 3-3 final score would have flattered us, and therefore that we can't complain too much with the final result.

• But I can't quite make myself buy it. To lose in the sixth minute of four minutes of stoppage time stings something quite serious. I'm really not a big fan of the explanatory power of officials' bias in explaining the outcomes of football matches and seasons, and certainly not in relation to a particular conspiracy against one's own team. It stinks of solipsism. That said, I don't think you need to be a lifelong blue to question whether the six minutes of stoppage time - after the initial award of four - was justified. And I don't think you need to be a Munich-singing neanderthal to question whether Manchester United needing a goal at Old Trafford was a factor in the generosity of the award.

• Anyway, back to the performance. It was mixed. In both halves United started with pace and guile and scored early. In both halves City looked rattled before finding an equaliser out of nothing. But there the similarities end. In the first half we grew after Barry's goal, matching United and creating the best chance of the half - Carlos Tévez hitting the post. In the second half we sat back after Bellamy's goal and came under serious and sustained siege. Not much would have to have been different for us to lose this by a distance.

• For all United's domination of possession, I wonder if Hughes will worry that all four of United's goal were avoidable from our perspective. Richards and Kolo Touré slipped for Rooney's goal, while errors of marking were responsible for Darren Fletcher's two headed goals. I don't want to remember Owen's winner but he certainly escaped Kolo after we'd lost the first ball. Defensive errors are certainly part of the game. United have the two best centre-backs in the world and still conceded three. So you can't wholly eliminate them. But after spending £38m on centre-backs one would hope that we could avoid conceding four in one game.

• Realistically, our challenge for the top four is not going to be defined by our result at Old Trafford. It hurts to lose the derby in such circumstances, but better than dwelling on any possible injustice we must hope that the same errors of marking and defending are not made in our next two home games: Fulham in the League Cup on Wednesday, and West Ham in the EPL next Monday. The wheels must not come off.