Three stunning misses from Carlos Tevez almost proved costly as Manchester City narrowly edged out Blackpool 1-0 to stay level with neighbours United at the top of the Premier League.
Tevez missed a first-half penalty and then two sitters in the space of five minutes after the break, including an open goal as he fell after rounding the goalkeeper.
But all that came after Adam Johnson's 33rd-minute strike and City endured a nervous finish to take all three points.
Tevez returned to lead the City attack as a knee injury ruled out Mario Balotelli only four days after his hat-trick against Aston Villa, one of four changes manager Roberto Mancini made to the side that won 4-0.
Ian Holloway made only one change to the Blackpool team that won 2-0 at Sunderland, with captain Charlie Adam returning from suspension in place of Elliot Grandin, who suffered a hamstring injury at the Stadium of Light.
Tevez should have scored after only 22 seconds as the match got off to a tremendous start.
Adam misplaced a backpass that went straight to the Argentinian, but he screwed his shot wide.
David Silva fired wide moments later, while Blackpool had a fantastic chance when Gary Taylor-Fletcher beat Aleksandar Kolarov to break into the box, only to pull his cross back behind the run of DJ Campbell.
Tevez was almost played in again by another sloppy Blackpool pass, but this time he was forced wide and his cross was headed away from Yaya Toure by Ian Evatt.
But Blackpool, playing their fourth straight away game, were also playing with plenty of intent and Ludovic Sylvestre's neat pass left Taylor-Fletcher free in front of goal, with Joe Hart making a fine save to deny him.
Silva was inches away from capping a fine move with the opening goal in the 20th minute, but his shot scraped the wrong side of the post from Tevez's cross.
Silva went just wide again when he hooked Craig Cathcart's header out of the air on the edge of the area before sending a half-volley just the wrong side of the post.
City had been failing to test Richard Kingson and Tevez was off target again when he blazed over after being played in by Toure.
But the breakthrough came in the 33rd minute when Taylor-Fletcher cleared a corner straight to Johnson, who sent a low shot through the crowd and past the unsighted goalkeeper.
Tevez then wasted the chance to make it 2-0 three minutes later as he sent a penalty wide left after Toure was clumsily brought down by Luke Varney.
Holloway replaced Sylvestre with Matt Phillips at the break and the winger made a lively start, with Varney heading just over from his cross.
Phillips then tested Hart, breaking from the halfway line before sending a shot through the legs of Vincent Kompany which the England goalkeeper pushed away from danger.
Toure was denied a brilliant solo goal as he raced from deep inside his own area, beating four defenders, before being denied by a fine challenge from Cathcart as he prepared to shoot.
Pablo Zabaleta came on for his 100th City appearance and immediately teed up Tevez to curl a shot just wide of the right-hand post. City then suffered a blow as Silva came off with a knee injury, replaced by James Milner.
Joleon Lescott almost played a suicidal backpass with Hart just winning the race against Campbell to clear.
Tevez then missed an unbelievable chance to score, racing clear and rounding the goalkeeper, only to slip in front of the open goal and allow Blackpool to recover.
It was clearly not Tevez's day and he missed another great chance when he directed Milner's pull-back wide from the penalty spot after breaking free of his marker.
That kept the pressure on City and Hart needed fingertips to push Neal Eardley's rising drive over the crossbar.
From the resulting corner, substitute Brett Ormerod saw his header touched over by the England goalkeeper.
Blackpool kept up the heat in the final minutes, but City, using some often desperate defending, hung on.
Manchester City assistant manager David Platt admitted Blackpool put a scare into his team with goalkeeper Joe Hart forced to make soem excellent saves.
"What we didn't do today was to take advantage of some good opportunities to get that second goal, which in recent games we've managed to do,'' Platt said.
Tevez missed a penalty only three minutes after Johnson's goal, and that would make it a much harder afternoon's work for City.
"If you can get a second goal straight away that cushion enables players to play with a bit more freedom, but we didn't take the opportunities that playing a team like Blackpool will give you,'' Platt added.
"They come at you and attack you. They give you respect but they do that by taking the game to you. That leaves room for you to create and exploit but it also leaves you on a knife edge because they can get a goal.
"We were definitely the happier team to hear the final whistle.''
Tevez also missed an open goal as he fell after rounding the goalkeeper, but Platt says the Argentinian should not be too downhearted.
"Things tend to balance out for strikers and for teams,'' he said. "If you create that many chances and only get one goal, hopefully in the next one you might only create a few but get two or three goals.
"The most disappointing thing for a striker is when you don't get any chances but today he had eight or nine and if he keeps going like that the goals will come.''
For Blackpool, the disappointment of defeat was tempered by another strong display from a team that continues to defy all pre-season predictions.
"We threw just about everything we had at them, which I wasn't sure we were going to do in the first half,'' manager Ian Holloway said. "We looked a bit hesitant early on, and we don't normally look like that, but maybe it was a hangover from the other times we've played away against one of the top teams and got a bit of a pasting.
"I think putting Matty Phillips on at half-time gave us some hope and some belief because he's not scared of anything. He ran with it and turned someone inside out who got taken off straight away. Then he did it to the new bloke and I wondered if they had any more left-backs.
"But we put another centre-forward up front and I put all my strikers on and we couldn't have been more positive if we tried, but unfortunately we're on the bus home with our tails between our legs.''
But Holloway was horrified by the defending for City's goal.
"We've gone and lost to a horrendous goal from my point of view and from my team's point of view,'' he said. "You win a header from a corner and it falls to someone who shoots from the edge of the area and no one blocks it. We were a bit statuesque.''
While Holloway did not argue that Luke Varney fouled Yaya Toure for the penalty, he disputed the decision to give City a throw-in from which the incident stemmed.
"I'm delighted they missed the penalty because it was a throw-in to us,'' he said. "It was a penalty, but that was a throw-in to us, I can't stress it enough, I was stood right there. Our throw-in.''
But even with the defeat, Blackpool start 2011 in the top half of the table and with games in hand after recent postponements, giving Holloway much to be happy about.
"I don't think we needed much improvement to get a result today, so that is what encourages me in all of this,'' he said.
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