Man United determined to silence City

MANCHESTER, England (AFP) - Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson insists his side will silence "noisy neighbours" Manchester City after a sensational 4-3 victory over their bitter rivals.

Michael Owen scored a dramatic 96th minute goal to secure a derby triumph which had featured three City equalisers.

The rivalry that had been building all week helped create a superb contest at Old Trafford which showed that City are worthy of being considered serious contenders for silverware after their close-season of extraordinary spending.

But United had the final word thanks to substitute Owen's stoppage time strike.

"Sometimes you've got a noisy neighbour and you have to live with it," Ferguson said. "You can't do anything about them and they keep on making noise.

"But what you can do, and what we've shown is that you can get on with your life, put your television on, turn it up a bit louder and as the players showed their playing power and that's the best answer of all. They'll always be noisy!"

United were handed a dream start by Wayne Rooney but the goal was cancelled out by a Ben Foster error which permitted former United star Carlos Tevez to set up a first equaliser for Gareth Barry.

Darren Fletcher headed in two second half goals, each cancelled out by superb efforts from Craig Bellamy, the last with five seconds to go in normal time.

But, 90 seconds beyond the four minutes that were supposed to be added on, Owen settled an unforgettable game, one that Ferguson billed the greatest ever Manchester derby.

The time keeping of referee Martin Atkinson and his officials, however, prevented City boss Mark Hughes from sharing his opposite number's enthusiasm.

"The fourth official told me he added a minute plus because of our celebration when we scored our third," Hughes said. "But we timed the amount of time from when we scored to when they kicked off and it was something like 45 seconds so he has got that wrong.

"I think they scored at 95 minutes, 26 seconds so he has obviously played too much time and he ended up playing 97 minutes. I just need an explanation as to why he had to add so much time.

"Historically, it has happened before at this ground. It used to happen on teams I was on, we used to get a little bit of benefit.

"I'm not questioning the referee's integrity, I would just like an explanation because I just don't see where he got seven minutes from."

Ferguson, meanwhile, was unhappy with his team's defending in an extraordinary game and claimed, somewhat fancifully, that United could have won the game by a 6-0 scoreline had they not been so generous.

"It spoiled a really emphatic victory because we could have won by six or seven today and the fact that we made the mistakes probably made it the best derby game of all time," added Ferguson.

"Would we have rather won 6-0 or had the greatest derby game of all time? I'd rather have won 6-0."

Hughes also confirmed that City sub Javier Garrido was hit by a missile that was aimed at Tevez as he walked down the tunnel at half-time. Hughes said: "He's okay we don't want to dwell on it."

And Hughes also leaped to the defence of his two-goal forward Bellamy who appeared to slap a fan who launched a one-man pitch invasion after United's winner.

"The guy shouldn't have been on the pitch, that's not acceptable," Hughes said. "I remember Brian Clough clipping someone round the earhole because he was being daft. Maybe that is what he's done."