NEITHER Stuart Pearce’s Beany the Horse nor Neil Warnock’s Scotty the Teddy could make the slightest difference. One of only two Premiership clubs yet to concede a goal at home, Manchester City managed to prevent Sheffield United from gaining their first goal on the road. Stalemate prevailed in a disappointing game for both teams.

Perhaps the point was more critical to Pearce, for he wanted to avoid at all costs a 13th defeat in City’s previous 20 Premiership matches. He did. But his side have won only two of nine league and cup matches this season.

Their trial continues while the Blades must wait for their first back-to-back wins in the Premiership in almost 13 years, having beaten Middlesbrough before the international break. Small wonder, then, that both managers have taken to good-luck mascots.

It is 32 years since United last won a game on City soil and rarely did they threaten to break the sequence. But it was the profligacy of Georgios Samaras and Bernardo Corradi, City’s front pair, which most marked this game. “The chances were there and we didn’t take them,” said Pearce. With a little more conviction, City might have scored, although it was Sheffield United’s Rob Hulse who came closest, striking the bar with a beautifully contrived overhead kick.

Nicky Weaver’s back injury, which he suffered in training on Thursday, presented the opportunity to Sheffield-born teenager Joe Hart to make his Premiership debut. City’s early attacks, however, carried more edge than those of the Blades. Their direct means forced a couple of corners in quick succession while a long cross from the left by Trevor Sinclair required the intervention of Leigh Bromby to prevent Samaras from testing Paddy Kenny.

Warnock’s side wanted to work the ball with quick passes through midfield before bringing in their wide players, Keith Gillespie and Alan Quinn. The Northern Irishman produced a quality free kick that Hart punched away off Hulse’s head while Sylvain Distin denied Hulse with a strong defensive header from a Quinn cross. Colin Kazim-Richards might have done better when he weaved his way through the middle before driving wide with his right boot from 30 yards.

An uncompromising tackle by Bromby on Hatem Trabelsi to break up a promising City attack typified the fare. Ricky Hatton, the world light-welterweight boxing champion and City season-ticket holder who was travelling up the M1 from London after appearing on Sky Sports’ Soccer AM, was not missing much. Then two clear-cut chances fell to Corradi, both from pinpoint free kicks by Barton: the first, a volley from close range that went well over and then a free header that also cleared the crossbar.

City were beginning to impose themselves, however unconvincingly. Dietmar Hamann played an incisive ball through to Samaras, who struck a powerful shot from inside the penalty area that Kenny saved well. The £6m Greece striker also went close with a cross-cum-shot before the interval. But it was the visiting team who came closest to breaking the deadlock. A long throw-in was headed back across City’s crowded box by Claude Davis and Hulse executed a spectacular bicycle kick, only to be thwarted by the crossbar.

The second half began with no more promise. A series of ricochets in the United penalty area and a sliced pass by Hamann, which fell fortuitously for Samaras, culminated in a shot by the 21-year-old striker so askew that it went out for a throw. Beware of Greeks offered gifts was the prescient thought.

His most blatant miss came just before the hour when he shot high and aimlessly across the face of goal after Corradi’s back-post header could only be parried by Kenny. The scorer of two sublime goals in the win against West Ham when City last played here, this was not to be Samaras’s day.

Star Man: Joey Barton (Manchester City)

Player Ratings: Manchester City: Hart 6, Richards 6, Dunne 6, Distin 6, Trabelsi 6, Jordan 6 (Miller h-t, 6), Barton 7, Hamann 6 (Reyna 58min, 6), Sinclair 6, Samaras 6, Corradi 5 (Dickov 70min, 6)

Sheffield United: Kenny 6, Bromby 6, Davis 6, Jagielka 6, Armstrong 6, Gillespie 6, Tonge 6, Leigertwood 6, Kazim-Richards 6 (Webber 72min, 6), Quinn 6, Hulse 6

Referee: M Dean

Attendance: 42,192 P