Three short minutes of Manchester United passion enough as Manchester City get what they deserve
When was the last time we had a Manchester derby in these kind of circumstances? For decades, this has either been a battle to prove which of the two is supreme in the country or, far more often, a chance for a down-in-the-mouth side to at least claim a little bit of pride by turning over their smugly superior neighbours.
This time, both Manchester City and Manchester United were playing in the shadow of a Premier League ivory tower neither of them could currently call home. Reigning champions City may have had eight places over United coming in, but they have been so uncharacteristically bad for weeks now that there was a tangible sense of apprehension among the home fans. Losing to United really would be an unbearable indignity.
Trying to judge the job Ruben Amorim has done in his first few weeks at the club is difficult anyway, given the depth of United’s issues and the high level they aspire to get back to. Yet City are so clearly the better team on paper that we could not call a City win a corner well and truly turned for Pep Guardiola, either. Conclusive analysis was thus always going to be evasive: a victory for either side could be too easily be written off as attributable to the deficiencies of their opposition.
Yet somehow, through all of that, these two sides allowed us to come to one big, definite conclusion on where they are right now: they’re both a bit crap.
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It took 32 minutes for United to have a shot on goal, and that was a speculative long shot straight at a defender. Both times they looked most dangerous and actually got into the City box, Amad Diallo was miles offside – and on one of those occasions, he shot wide when one-on-one with Ederson before the flag went up anyway.
It was another four minutes before City (three shots, none on target to that point) actually put a good delivery into the United box, and even that was only thanks to a massive deflection as Kevin De Bruyne’s delivery from a poorly-worked short corner hit Amad in the shins and looped into the box for Josko Gvardiol to head home unchallenged, despite having two United men on him.
You don’t always expect derbies to be full of free-flowing quality, but even by that metric, this was an exceptionally difficult watch; you at least expect to get a bit of passion.
The first half was enlivened by some nonsense handbags after Kyle Walker tripped Rasmus Hojlund off the ball then took a dive Tom Daley would be proud of after the Dane went forehead-to-forehead with him, sparking a brief flurry of tempers between the 22 players.
But otherwise the game remained bizarrely flat, with both sides looking far more afraid of embarrassing themselves further than they were emboldened by the potential for glory.
That was especially baffling on United’s part after going a goal down; they continued playing for much of the game as if they had not registered the City goal and were happy to keep playing for a goalless draw. Bruno Fernandes had their only notable effort of an abysmally dull second half before the incredible finale, and he too put that dinked effort wide of the post after racing through one-on-one with Ederson.
At least for City at the point, ‘just don’t make any mistakes’ could be spun as a legitimate strategy for seeing the game out. But it was almost sad to see them reduced to this regardless, with the constantly-wayward Kevin de Bruyne clearly a shadow of his former self, Ilkay Gundogan’s half-pace efforts showing why City were happy enough to let him leave last year, and a general listlessness pervading the entire performance.
Only, of course, that mistake did come. Amad seized on a stupid backpass, decided against taking a snap shot, then was clattered by Matheus Nunes inside the box, with Fernandes sending Ederson the wrong way.
And then, the hilarious clincher: a sweeping ball over the top, and a Gascoignesque bit of skill from Amad to loop the ball up away from Ederson and finish from a narrow angle, with Gvardiol’s pitiful attempt at a backheel failing to prevent it from running over the line.
United had done very little to deserve victory – but then, nor had City. It was probably right that the one and only bit of real quality in the game was the decider.
Guardiola has rightly won plaudits over the years for ensuring his side have never felt sated by their mountain of silverware, and have always gone straight back on the hunt for more. But these players would never have looked so happy to settle for a 1-0 over United in the past. United did nothing that merited victory for 85 minutes, but City nonetheless got what they deserved.
That fire just was not there in this game for City, and if you can’t get yourself up for a local derby against a side who are there for the taking, you wonder if anything less than sweeping changes can do anything to re-light that flame.
And for United…well, that might just be the little spark to the touchpaper they needed. Their problems are still there and will take a lot of sorting – but for the next few months, at least, they will walk that little bit taller around their mates in blue.
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