Is this any way to win the EPL?

Can we all just agree that Wednesday's over-hyped and over-cooked Manchester Derby simply never occurred? Let's pretend for a moment that City's Roberto Mancini didn't throttle the game to death for fear that his employers would mistake his scarf for a noose if he lost to their bitter rival.

As a friend of mine texted me from the stands at Eastlands Stadium, the atmosphere was "mental" at kickoff and then the entire day was ruined because they actually played the game.

In retrospect, this match had D.O.A. written all over it from the moment Carlos Tevez resisted the impulse to crash his forehead into Rafael's face as the two squared up on the stroke of halftime. That tepid staredown aside, this contest was so utterly devoid of emotion that Mr. Spock would have cheered like Fireman Ed Anzalone.

Seriously, is this any way for two teams that aspire to bestride English soccer to act?

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Matthew Peters/Man Utd/Getty ImagesNemanja Vidic was a rock for United at the back this season.

As Chelsea stuttered to a hard-earned home win over Fulham, all of Mancini's renowned continental flair and Sir Alex's prematch bloviating came to nothing. (Well, technically, it came to nothing-nothing.) Set against the memories of last season's titanic derby culminating in Michael Owen's heart-stopping winner in the 96th minute, this game was a small, yipping Chihuahua with fleas.

You had to feel particularly sorry for the forlorn City fan who had spent the past few days hungry for metaphorical blood following Fergie's daily musings and jibes to anyone and everyone who'd listen.

On Monday, Sir Alex reckoned United's "noisy neighbors" would keep spending millions until the Eastlands cabinets were overflowing with silverware. A day later, it was the opposite: the puce-faced Scot hissed that City was "screaming from the rooftops" about its plans for world domination without having won a trophy. In 24 hours, the club had gone from legitimate contenders to "cocky" and "all talk." And then on the eve of the match, Ferguson announced that half his players had been struck down with "a virus" and he had no idea how he'd field a team. It was a measure of how mind-numbingly dull the game turned out to be that even the disease was boring. I mean, at least Chelsea's Didier Drogba was suffering from malaria while United's players had a mild case of influenza that they all miraculously recovered from by kickoff.

Still, you can hardly blame Fergie for his desperate gamesmanship. He has always felt that there is room in Manchester for only one soccer tyrant and now his hegemony has been threatened by a club that was starting to look appealing to even Wayne Rooney. That exhausting saga only fueled Sir Alex's enmity for City, but for all his talk, United without Wazza didn't look like scoring regardless of how many minutes of Fergie Time were added to the clock. And lest we forget, Dimitar Berbatov's glorious hat trick against Liverpool is now six weeks old -- the Bulgarian Bear is back in full winter slumber.

Mancini didn't endear himself either, deploying his three-headed midfield of Yaya Toure, Gareth Barry and Nigel De Jong to destroy any semblance of attacking flow. Meanwhile, he positioned the unfit and unsettled Tevez alone up front to forage for scraps and no doubt to wonder why he ever bothered to return from his "homesick leave" in Argentina.

Granted, each team was missing its respective human volcano -- Rooney for United and Mario Balotelli for City -- either of whom could have caused the game to erupt into life. But Ferguson once again went to great lengths to protect his prodigal striker from a hostile crowd, sending him 3,000 miles away to Nike's renowned conditioning center in Portland, Ore., to heal his ankle and ego. And City's $38 million hothead Balotelli, coming off a two-goal, one-red card performance last weekend that resulted in a three-game suspension, was forced to cool his heels in the stands.

Those conspicuous absences notwithstanding, there is still no excuse for the kind of risk-averse soccer City indulged in for 90 minutes. How does Mancini justify City spending more than $800 million to assemble the most expensive squad in English soccer and then essentially playing for one point against an arch rival -- at home? Yes, his first priority is to win a title for his Abu Dhabi benefactors, but will Sheikh Mansour really be satisfied with a methodical, entertainment-free style, no matter how successful it is?

Anyone remember how that worked out for Big Phil Scolari at Chelsea?

On the other foot, what does it say about Fergie that he was willing to settle for a draw as if he was playing a friendly in the Meadowlands rather than an intra-city war? Has it gotten to the point where he regards City with the same respect he does, say, Inter Milan?

It's easy to see why he would fulminate about the "stupid" billboards saying, "Welcome to Manchester" that City erected downtown after Tevez swapped his red shirt for a blue one. But the fact Ferguson still gets enraged about it may mean that there's more truth in the message than he's willing to let on.

Either way, if Wednesday's dour stalemate is any indication, it seems increasingly unlikely that come May there will be posters anywhere in Manchester proclaiming "Welcome to the home of the 2010-11 EPL champions."

David Hirshey has been covering soccer for more than 30 years and has written about the sport for The New York Times, Time, ESPN The Magazine and Deadspin. He is the co-author of "The ESPN World Cup Companion" and played himself (almost convincingly) in the acclaimed soccer documentary "Once in a Lifetime."