It seemed that Derby County supporters had missed a trick when they failed to bring the balloons, but that would be to disregard Manchester City’s penchant for puncturing their own dreams. Although Daniel Sturridge, the 18-year-old nephew of Dean, the former Derby striker, scored on his full league debut to bring Sven-Göran Eriksson’s team a fifth draw in seven matches, the failure to beat the bottom club deflated City’s chances of Champions League qualification.

In front of their new American owners, Derby gave a spirited performance to gain only their second point from Paul Jewell’s ten league games in charge but they were still indebted to a comic own goal from Sun Jihai. The City and China defender did not require any party aids to help him to divert Kenny Miller’s shot into his net. Darius Vassell’s many missed chances were made to count as City failed to capitalise on Liverpool’s defeat.

Eriksson signed a new £5 million striker last night — Felipe Caicedo, the 20-year-old Ecuador and FC Basle forward, and Benjani Mwaruwari, of Portsmouth, is also thought to be among his targets.

He conceded that, despite an improvement from Sunday’s FA Cup fourth-round defeat by Sheffield United, this was two points lost. “I think it was a missed opportunity, yes, absolutely,” the City manager said. “But I can’t complain to the players — at least if you try hard, create chances and have good spirit. We deserved to win, if you look at the chances we created, and even the goal they scored, we helped them with that.”

When Derby, themselves humbled by Coca-Cola Championship opposition at the weekend, when they lost 4-1 at home to Preston North End, found themselves level despite Vassell being clean through on goal four times, they started believing that they could get a positive result. Robert Earnshaw shot against a post after a swift turn but the breakthrough, arriving early in the second half, was pure City farce.

First of all Richard Dunne fell over as he completely missed his clearance, allowing Miller an initial run at the defence. Then, when Hossam Ghaly’s run was blocked, Miller’s wayward shot diverted almost comically off Sun to leave Joe Hart wrong-footed.

Derby’s elation did not last long, however. The excellent Martin Petrov, played in by a delicious flick from Elano, crossed low from the left and Sturridge knocked in his first league goal off a post.

Uncle Dean did not know whether to laugh or cry.

Derby County (4-4-2): L Price – D Leacock, D Moore, C Davis (sub: A Todd, 70min), M Edworthy – C Fagan, H Ghaly, R Savage, S Pearson (sub: G Barnes, 83) – K Miller, R Earnshaw (sub: E Villa, 89). Substitutes not used: B Hinchliffe, L Robert. Booked: Ghaly, Pearson.

Manchester City (4-4-2): J Hart – Sun Jihai, V Corluka, R Dunne, M Ball – K Etuhu (sub: Elano, 56), Gelson, S Ireland, M Petrov – D Vassell (sub: E Mpenza, 79), D Sturridge (sub: Geovanni, 72). Substitutes not used: K Schmeichel, D Hamann. Booked: Corluka.

Referee: S Bennett.