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Owen snatches derby win for United

Owen and Rooney: Both on target for United

Michael Owen hit the winner deep in added time to earn Manchester United a superb 4-3 victory over City in a thrilling derby at Old Trafford.

The United substitute and Carlos Tevez's replacement stole the show in a Premier League classic on Sunday as the champions demonstrated why they remain the city's dominant force.

In the fifth minute of stoppage-time, five minutes after City had scored their third equaliser, Owen strode onto Ryan Giggs' precise pass, looked up and calmly found the bottom right corner.

Sir Alex Ferguson danced, Mark Hughes was sick, angrily asking how referee Martin Atkinson had managed to come up with so much additional time.

For the record, the champions led three times through Wayne Rooney and two Darren Fletcher headers, but on each occasion were pegged back thanks to their own idiotic mistakes and a moment of brilliance from Craig Bellamy.

United made a bright start, with Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov looking particularly threatening, when Shaun Wright-Phillips let Patrice Evra run free at a quickly-taken Giggs throw-in.

Evra fed Rooney, who had the strength to wriggle past Kolo Toure and Nigel de Jong before prodding home from close range.

At that point, the noise was deafening but City were soon back on level terms. United goalkeeper Ben Foster was left with no excuses for his truly abysmal error of judgement that gifted the visitors their equaliser.

Even Joleon Lescott turned away in disappointment as his long pass bounced into no man's land. Foster clearly felt it would eventually run into the area, which was a debatable point in itself.

Eventually, Foster realised more urgent action was required as Tevez stormed in, just as he should have expected.

Any chance of redemption disappeared as Tevez nicked the ball away from Foster's grasp as he tried to reach the safety of his area, and slipped a pass to Gareth Barry which the England midfielder gleefully swept home.

United were soon back in the lead after 49 minutes and it was Fletcher who did the damage for Ferguson's team, rising above Barry to power home Giggs' curling cross.

Yet, just as the hosts looked set to take control, with Park Ji-sung and Giggs going close, Bellamy thundered home an equaliser.

Bellamy had been buzzing around in his inimitable manner, but there was no doubting the stamp of class on his 20-yard strike as he collected Tevez's short pass, cut inside John O'Shea and drilled into the top right corner. This time Foster was blameless.

But there was so much drama still to come.

Fletcher thought he had won it as he powered home a second header, again from a Giggs cross, 10 minutes from time.

Yet the suicidal tendencies in United ranks had not gone away. Rio Ferdinand attempted an idle chip a minute from time, but found substitute Martin Petrov instead. Petrov released Bellamy, who ran 60 yards before tucking past Foster on 90 minutes.

It seemed City had come through their biggest test yet but as cries for the final whistle rang around the away section, Giggs remained calm as he plucked the ball from the sky and picked out Owen who dinked over Given in the 96th minute, leaving City manager Hughes seething at the amount of added time.