The delicious thing about perfection is that it's only perfect until it's perfected. So for a few short months, we thought that winning a league derby in injury time was as good as this season could possibly get, but, joyously, we were mistaken. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

This time, the beauty was how many times City must have thought they'd escaped; after Rooney's miss, after Tevez's equaliser, after Carrick's miss, after Given's save. But no they had not, not by a long chalk – rather like Matthias, son of Deuteronomy of Gath, they were only making it worse for themselves.

Never before in my United-watching career have City been better than rubbish, and whatever the immorality of their ill-gotten gains, competition is always welcome. There was something really very satisfying in the way United were able to raise their game to keep the pretenders at arm's length - rather like Madrid did to us in the 2003 European Cup - restating beyond doubt the true order of things.

Many a 90s teenager will be familiar with the Guns n’ Roses song Get In The Ring, the aggressive anger and swearing that appears towards its end a guaranteed parent-riler when played at the appropriate volume. But despite luxuriating in the vitriol, I never did agree with its opening couplet, which goes as follows:

“Why do you look at me when you hate me? Why should I look at you when you make me hate you too”.

There’s little as invigoratingly life-affirming as hatred, and I was disappointed in Axl for trying to ignore it; clearly he’d never heard of Manchester City (funny that). I’ve always felt that hatred should be hard to come by, but with City you have the paradox of them making it so easy that it forces you to hate them even more for ruining the challenge. And boy oh boy, how unfeasibly easy they do make it.

Football may be the ultimate in communal communion, but if that were all it was, it wouldn’t be what it is. Each of us has a relationship with our team that anchors it in our personal history, a combination of little details and significant events that tell us who we are and what we want to be.

For me, the former is founded on the fact that Old Trafford is the only place frequented both by me and a grandfather I never met, the latter most obviously connected to an evening 15 years ago this month, when as a teenager trying to work myself out, I went to Selhurst Park and saw Eric Cantona do his thing. In a moment that felt like it’d been specifically designed with me in mind, the duty to be true to oneself in every circumstance was laid bare, and internalised forever.

So when people damage United, I take it personally, which is why I’m so militant in my hatred of the Glazers. And suddenly, no one's telling me that it’s misplaced; I told you so has never sounded as mortifying.

When Morrissey declared that he had forgiven Jesus, he was criticised by some for daring to suggest that could possibly be necessary. In similar vein, there’ll doubtless be plenty who’ll criticise me when I say that I haven’t, and will never, forgive Fergie.

Even though I’ve spoken them hundreds of times over the last four years, those are words that never flow easily. When the bible is read in synagogues, it’s sung according to a melody known as the trup, with each word marked by a particular note - one of which, the shalshelet, appears only five times in the entire Torah. It’s use is to indicate a pause, whilst its subject suffers the agonising turmoil of what’s termed a sin against the soul - when Joseph rejects the advances of Potiphar’s outrageously attractive wife, for example. And that’s how it feels to despise the man responsible for a reality so inconceivable that even Joseph himself couldn’t have dreamt it.

That heroes always let you down is a cliché for a reason, but even so, you’d have thought that Fergie had racked up sufficient credit to remain one forever. Although Busby status became unobtainable following the unsued-upon allegations made by eminent United historian Michael Crick, via the BBC’s Panorama programme, those purported indiscretions are dwarfed by achievements that won him significant slack. However his ushering in of the takeover reeled it all in and then some, imperilling the club in a way that was not only unacceptable but entirely avoidable.

Where to find happiness is a question that has vexed mankind since God was a foetus; for some it's in a warm gun, others a cigar called Hamlet, and for an unfortunate few, it's nowhere at all. That being the case, we're duty-bound to gorge on it whenever it happens to turn up, because we've got no idea when we'll come across it next.

And that's where football comes in, supplying us with a weekly thrill and legitimate reason to celebrate success; if glorying in personal achievement is only vanity in disguise, then true joy comes about through the achievements of others.

Second only to being a parent, the ultimate in vicarious delight, supporting a football team is of similar genus, the ability to claim ownership but not credit making it ok to enjoy things when they go right; the keenness of supporters to call players "son", "lad" and "kid" is no coincidence. It's unclear as to at what age this becomes unridiculous – at 30, I'm still too young – but it's impossible not to feel paternal towards the two bouncing bundles of curls and puppy fat otherwise known as the Da Silva twins.