IN COMMON WITH MANY IN FOOTBALL, Sir Alex Ferguson probably thought that he had seen the last of Stuart Pearce the manager when the former England captain’s spell in temporary charge of Nottingham Forest ended in relegation from the Premiership in 1997. In only the second match of that unsuccessful tenure, Forest lost 4-0 to Manchester United at the City Ground and, as their paths crossed at the end of the game, Ferguson uttered an ever so slightly patronising message of “keep at it, son”. “I just thought, ‘You bastard,’ ” Pearce recalled last week.

At 4.50pm on Saturday, as his Manchester City players celebrated a point that was the least they deserved in continuing their unbeaten start to the season, Pearce may have been tempted to revel in the role of the apprentice coming back to haunt the disdainful sorceror, but he thought better of it. “He just gave me a grim ‘well done’ and I gave him one back,” City’s increasingly impressive young manager said, adding that he had not heard anything of Ferguson’s usual courtesy of inviting his opposite number for a post-match drink.

Pearce said during the build-up to the match that Ferguson “wouldn’t give me the drippings off the end of his nose”, hinting at tensions dating back to his playing days at Forest, but the least he could expect on Saturday evening was a grudging show of respect from the United manager after one defeat, in his first match in charge last March, in 14 matches at the helm.

In the event, Ferguson was somewhat uncharitable about City’s tactics, suggesting that they had “looked for scraps” and defended as desperately as they did when claiming an improbable 0-0 draw on their previous visit to United under Kevin Keegan. The two performances, though, were incomparable; last November, camped on the edge of their penalty area for 90 minutes, City were lucky not to get a pounding, whereas on Saturday they were superior to a poor United team in almost every respect — if not technically then certainly physically, mentally and, above all, tactically.

Most managers go to Old Trafford with a defensive game plan, but rarely does one work as effectively as Pearce’s. One could talk disparagingly about “two banks of four” in front of David James, the goalkeeper, but there was far more to it than that. Joey Barton and Claudio Reyna fought for every ball in midfield while Trevor Sinclair and Kiki Musampa ensured that Danny Mills and Ben Thatcher were never isolated in the full back positions. It may not be rocket science, but it is to Pearce’s credit that, unlike so many other managers, his instructions are carried out religiously.

It helped that United seemed out of sorts, with several players bafflingly below form, and also that Roy Keane was left on the bench until Barton equalised in the closing stages. Afterwards, Ferguson talked of a universal acceptance that Keane’s ageing limbs have to be rested from time to time, but even on the club’s in-house television station, that policy was questioned by Lou Macari, the former United player, who said that, irrespective of a busy schedule, it defied belief that Ferguson had rested his influential captain for a derby match.

Pearce said that “it was nice to see him (Keane) not on the sheet”, but City were sharper all over the pitch. United took the lead in the final seconds of the first half, Ruud van Nistelrooy beating the unfortunate James at the second attempt after redirecting Paul Scholes’s free kick, which were the only two shots United had on target all afternoon. City did not manage their first until the 76th minute, when Edwin van der Sar saved well from Andrew Cole, but the loose ball fell to Darius Vassell, whose shot was diverted into the net by the delighted figure of Barton.

Ferguson bemoaned United’s misfortune, citing his team’s “domination” of the match, but he was deluding himself. He and Carlos Queiroz, his ever more prominent assistant, had no answer to Pearce’s game plan, adhering slavishly to a 4-3-3 formation that City had worked out how to combat. With Cristiano Ronaldo on compassionate leave after the death of his father and Ryan Giggs out of favour, Park Ji Sung lacked the composure to match his energy on the left wing.

Gabriel Heinze was another who was alarmingly out of sorts. He picked up United’s player-of-the-year award beforehand for his efforts last season, but thereafter he had an awful afternoon. It was his failure to close down Sinclair that led to City’s equaliser and another lapse of concentration right at the end that allowed Sinclair to tee up Cole, who would have scored a memorable winning goal but for the alertness and agility of Van der Sar, his former Fulham team-mate.

Ferguson said that a second City goal would have been “ridiculous”, to which Pearce responded: “I like ridiculous results.” In reality, an away win would have been nothing of the sort. “Keep at it, son,” Ferguson said all those years ago. What a good job for Manchester City that Pearce did.

MAN UTD: Van der Sar 7 O’Shea 4 Ferdinand 6 Silvestre 4 Heinze 3 Fletcher 5 Smith 5 Scholes 5 Rooney 7 Van Nistelrooy 6 Park Ji Sung 4 Subs: Keane for Fletcher, 78; Richardson for Smith, 87; Giggs for Park, 81. Subs not used: Howard, Bardsley. Next: Liverpool (a). Form: DWWWWL.

MAN CITY: Vassell 5 Cole 6 Sinclair 7 Reyna 8 Barton 7 Musampa 6 Thatcher 6 Dunne 7 Distin 8 Mills 7 James 6 Subs: Sun Jihai for Mills, 72; Sibierski for Musampa, 72; Fowler for Vassell, 84. Subs not used: Weaver, Onuoha. Next: Bolton (h). Form: DWWWDD .

Shots on target: (h) 2 (a) 3. Fouls: (h) 12 (a) 18. Offsides: (h) 1 (a) 3

Referee: S Bennett 7. Attendance: 67,839