Before Saturday's Manchester-derby The Telegraph's Henry Winter said "if you can't write eleven hundred words about this match you don't deserve to be here".
Quite how he was going to send his editor anything near north of a thousand words must have left him sweating in the Mancunian sun: large periods of this game were devoid of much, if any, quality.
Much of the pre-match focus was, quite rightly, on whether City were at once going to extinguish United's hopes of an unprecedented fourth successive title and reassert themselves as favourites for the coveted fourth spot.
For ninety-two minutes it looked as though they would at least prevent their Salford-based rivals from getting anything out of the match.
But you can never write off champions, least of all Manchester United.
With Chelsea travelling to White Hart Lane in the days evening kick off, United knew that only a win could keep the title hopes burning at Old Trafford. Ferguson had already described the match as the most important derby of his career and the atmosphere at Eastland's stood testament to that.
The opening twenty minutes were as frantic as you'd expect from teams with something to play for. Both started brightly, making early attempts to get into the others' penalty area. A couple of early slips from Nemanja Vidic could have proved costly had City's attackers, namely Emmanuel Adebayor, anticipated the ball.
The first effort came from Darren Fletcher, given the nod, as was Darron Gibson and Paul Scholes, over the underperforming Michael Carrick, whose twenty yard drive crept wide. Scholes, United's perennial servant, also drove wide soon after when his high standards demanded better.
City's only chance of the half fell to Carlos Tevez, whose curling free kick was held onto by a diving Edwin Van De Sar. The Argentinian was his usual vivacious self but was quickly hunted down by United when in possession. In fact this was the tale of an uneventful first half, the only chances of which fell to Wayne Rooney and Ryan Giggs, both of whom should have at least tested Shay Given.
An over-crowded midfield ensured that neither side were going to carve out chances and as a result City nor United took charge of the game.
The tide changed, ironically, when United swapped the half-fit, inefficient Rooney for United fans' favourite scapegoat Dimitar Berbatov. The striker's flaws have been well publicised but he offers the United forward line something different, if not entirely successful.
His peculiar strength on the ball means he is able to slalom past players, dragging some out of position and when he was introduced with twenty minutes remaining United started to look threatening.
City were now playing for the draw, hopeful they could catch United out on the counter attack and it almost paid dividends. Craig Bellamy shot wide when he should have squared the ball to Carlos Tevez, Patrick Viera could have capitalised on Van Der Sar's fumbled catch and Gareth Barry bizarrely opted to look for a penalty rather than shoot.
Inevitably the decisive blow came in injury time, a weapon that United have used to defeat City twice already this season. Referee Martin Atkinson, who controversially awarded 7 minutes of stoppage time in the reverse fixture in September, indicated 3 minutes were to be added to the full ninety.
As Patrice Evra picked the ball up high in the City half he picked out a wandering Paul Scholes on the penalty spot who planted an unchallenged header low into the bottom right corner. Quite how Scholes, who had dominated the games play, managed to allude City's defenders and tracking midfield revealed a lack of concentration that renders City as outsiders for a Champions League spot.
In one of the defining derbies it was Ferguson who had again silenced his 'noisy neighbours' but it was one of the golden generation who would be writing the headlines.
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