THE TARGET, undoubtedly, was Carlos Tevez. As the Manchester City players left the pitch at half-time the most reviled player in the stadium was staring sullenly at the fans in the Stretford End. It was a sea of hand signals and angry, contorted faces and Tevez began to applaud sarcastically. Something was thrown. It struck Javier Garrido, the wrong player. In that moment Tevez must have realised the true depth of feeling here when it comes to his defection to the other side of a divided city.

There are many different ways to make someone feel unwelcome. Alex Ferguson’s own technique was to freeze Tevez into the gulag of indifference, with not a single reference to his former player in his programme notes, no mention of Tevez’ part in helping to restore the European Cup to Old Trafford, no message welcoming him back to Old Trafford.

Ferguson talks about Tevez these days only when he is asked. It is as though he would rather airbrush him from the club’s history.

As for the crowd, they opted for outright hostility, attacking Tevez for his perceived treachery; so voluble was their contempt it was difficult to remember the last time a visiting player to Old Trafford had been received so badly.

City had their fun with their Tevez-inspired “Welcome to Manchester” billboard earlier this summer. United’s fans made their point with a banner bearing the same message – complete with a list of the club’s major trophies.

Nothing will have hurt Tevez more, however, than that moment in the 96th minute, long after City thought the game should have ended, when Ryan Giggs picked out Michael Owen inside the penalty area and everything seemed to go into slow motion.

Here was the man who had been brought in to replace Tevez and, with his first chance, his finish was unerring. Some of the City players sunk to the ground in despair. Tevez simply stood and stared. It was a moment of classic United.

It will not need to be pointed out to the Old Trafford crowd that this was the same end at which Tevez had squandered his one big chance of the afternoon. Tevez, one imagines, could find himself breaking into a cold sweat when he recalls that moment, in the last attack of the first half, when the ball was at his feet inside the penalty area and his shot flicked off the outside of the post.

It was the kind of miss that could be used as evidence to back Ferguson’s claims that the striker was simply not worth the unspecified, but undoubtedly huge, fee that City had paid for him.

Football can be brutal like that because, if it had not been for Owen’s late contribution, that miss would have been largely glossed over in appreciation of the way Tevez had played and the manner in which, for City’s opening goal, he had turned down the volume on the hate mob.

Tevez displayed all the qualities that had made him such a favourite at Old Trafford – indefatigable, hard-running, always looking for danger and quick, strong and brave enough to unnerve even the most accomplished opponents.

Perhaps he had inside information too. Maybe he knew from his time at Old Trafford that Ben Foster can dither sometimes when he comes off his goal-line. The game was barely a minute old when Tevez got in behind Nemanja Vidic to charge down one clearance and, when he sensed the goalkeeper’s vulnerability again, his determination paid off.

This was classic Tevez, scampering after Gareth Barry’s pass when most players would have accepted that it was too far to reach. Foster, again, was uncertain and Tevez was there in a flash.

This was all about his tenacity and desire but there was also something understated about the way that, having dispossessed the goalkeeper, his desperation to prove a point did not blur his thoughts and he still had the presence of mind to see that Barry was in a better position than himself. Barry may have slotted the ball into the exposed net but it was a goal that owed everything to Tevez.

It could have been one of the defining moments of a momentous match. Instead this was probably the day that Owen’s Manchester United career started in earnest and Tevez’ contribution was consigned to the small print.

Guardian Service