At the end of the season, when the story comes to be told of how Pep Guardiola and José Mourinho did in their first year in Manchester, they might both look back on this draw as a useful result if it helps with the business of finishing in the top four. There are, however, no guarantees and it was a strangely subdued derby at times, lacking any real incident until the moment late on when Marouane Fellaini lost the plot.
Fellaini was so aggrieved by his red card it needed half a dozen of his Manchester United colleagues to usher him away. It was a display of petulance that might warrant a Football Association charge and, not for the first time, it was difficult to find any mitigation for a player with a long history of violent acts. The difference this time is that Fellaini did not get away with it in the way he often has in the past. His head-butt on Sergio Agüero was committed directly in front of the referee, Martin Atkinson, and the Belgian, a repeat offender, should just be relieved that his team-mates managed to hold on without him.
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