It’s the 12th of February 2011 and we’re at Old Trafford. The ground is quite literally shaking, you can hear the chanting, the cheering and the noise of it all seeping from every pore in the stadium. There is no room for silence with it long since banished from the grounds and at the moment, it doesn’t look like it was ever making it’s way back. Sir Alex Ferguson is on the touchline guiding and barking at his troops while Robert Mancini did the same.

That is partly because everything good that has happened for Manchester United has come from this right-hand-side via Nani and whoever seemed to be there. It left Pablo Zabaleta with a very tough job although while the Argentine held his own, quite a few of those opportunities flew past him. But as Scholes pass flew towards Nani, Zabaleta was slow to react and it allows the winger that extra touch he needed.

Time has now stopped but before we dive into the climax and make a massive splash, let’s roll the dice back and figure out how we got here in the first place. Because as luck would have it, nobody on this planet would have backed Manchester United to be in a 1-1 draw against Manchester City and that’s even against this Manchester City team. This is, after all, Sir Alex Ferguson’s feared Manchester United side, the same team that had won three league titles in the last four years.

The same side that reached the Champions League quarter-finals the season before, the final the season before that and lifted the trophy the year before. This was a feared side especially with the gruff Scotsman standing on the sidelines barking instructions. Well, that and partly because they had continued their form into this season, well into this season rather, and had become the favourites to lift the title.

It’s why Arsenal sat one point behind them in second place, with Manchester City five points behind and reigning Champions Chelsea seven points behind. Things weren’t looking good and it was a scalp that Robert Mancini and his Manchester City were desperately looking for. One they believed they could get and why not? Things were changing for the blue side of Manchester with their new owners pumping money into the club.

It saw them spend heavily signing six players permanently that summer, with Dzeko arriving in January, and that included Mario Balotelli, David Silva and a few others. Effectively, it handed the Cityzens a team capable of finishing not amongst the top five sides in England’s top tier but amongst the top four and maybe even challenge for the title. But that just wasn’t to be because the closest Manchester City had come, until the derby, was a second-place spot early in the season.

That is with Cristiano Ronaldo now dancing across the Santiago Bernabeu for fun, Rooney was the man United turned to but he was struggling to showcase his talent. More often than not, so much so that everyone was claiming where they’d seen the best of the man who rocked English football from the tender age of 16. He walked into the derby with just four goals in his opening 26 league games, a tally that agreed with what the critics put across.

But like most derbies, this started out wonderfully after a cute one-two between Carlos Tevez and David Silva sent the Spaniard clear into the area. Yet with only Edwin van der Sar to beat, Silva sent a tame finish across the goal and wide of Van der Sar’s far post. The Dutchman was beaten and a quick look at the Spaniard’s face told us just how bad a miss that was. 

That was about the best chance either side had in the opening 40 minutes, that is with the exception of a few long-range attempts from either side. All in all, not the greatest half of football and then Manchester United struck via a wonderfully worked move. Nani, who had been a threat all game, broke through the middle and beyond Zabaleta and was found with a deft lofted pass from Giggs.

That combined with Rooney being shackled by a superb Vincent Kompany, left the game with very little to offer in the first-half and that did not change in the second. But, the Cityzens started the half a far better side than their hosts and flashed more than their fair few crosses across Van der Sar’s bow. Nothing major for the Dutch international to deal with but more of a looming threat that just stood over menacingly and did nothing else.

It meant that when the equaliser arrived nobody was more shocked than Van der Sarr himself as Dzeko’s attempt to send a cross into the net deflected off Silva’s back and flew in.  A scrappy goal for a what had been a scrappy game but the equaliser proved to light a fire under both sides as they flew forward as if realising that this was a derby. The decibel levels slowly rose inside the stadium but despite a few decent half-chances, neither side looked capable of taking the lead.

Berbatov finds Rooney on the edge of the area but the Englishman’s first touch is poor and he loops the ball fifteen yards back, forcing the Bulgarian to back-track. But before he can get there, Scholes has read the move and mopped up with David Silva and Edin Dzeko surrounding him. Shaun Wright-Philips is on his right and yet the danger is coming from Gareth Barry. The City man is charging the United midfielder down, but Scholes effortlessly finds Nani on the right.

The Portuguese winger has caused problems for Zabaleta all evening and this seems to be another issue of the same comic as he bides his time. There is space behind the full-back for Nani to run onto but at the same time, he has two men waiting inside the area with three ready to make the late sprint for a cross. It’s a real quandary for Nani but the fate of this game, and probably the title race, rests on his shoulders as Rooney finds a makes a little space between him and Kompany.