Superior City easily
Guardiola piles pain on rival Jose as City’s movement leaves United chasing shadows
NORMAL service is resumed. Manchester City showed all of the controversy from Football Leaks this week, didn’t actually affect the team, as they also showed their obvious superiority over Manchester United.
Through that, and a mostly easy 3-1 win, Pep Guardiola remarkably got his first derby victory at the Etihad. Jose Mourinho’s flat side meanwhile, at last suffered the defeat that has been coming for some time.
United were actually fortunate that this was not worse than 3-1 and that City inexplicably slacked off for long passages of the game. Guardiola’s side were still that much better. The table meanwhile looks that much worse for United. They are still eighth, and now with a negative goal difference.
That revival didn’t go that far, and Mourinho has much to consider. His starting line-up in fact reflected a core source of confusion with this United side.
Mourinho started with the tallest and bulkiest midfield he possibly could, putting in Nemanja Matic and Marouane Fellaini in the absence of injured Paul Pogba, but their lack of mobility told. City were just able to play through them at will, picking passes in an area that was so strikingly open.
There was one moment in the second half when Ander Herrera — notionally the most nimble of the three central midfielders MAN CITY: Ederson, WalKer, Stones, Laporte, Mendy, Bernardo Silva, Fernandinho, Silva (Foden 90), Mahrez (Sane 62), Aguero (Gundogan 75),Sterling.
Subs Not Used:
Jesus,Muric.
Goals: Silva 12,Aguero 48,Gundogan 86.. MAN UNITED: de Gea,Young, Smalling, Lindelof, Shaw, Ander Herrera (Mata 73), Fellaini, Matic, Lingard (Lukaku 57), Rashford (Sanchez 73),Martial.
Subs Not Used: Jones, Fred, Romero, Darmian.
Goals: Martial 58 pen.
Referee: Anthony Taylor (Cheshire).
Kompany,Delph,Gabriel
— just stood there as Leroy Sane danced around him. The problem had been building up for a while, though, and initially led to a lightning City start that made the first goal inevitable. It still shouldn’t have made individual errors from United so predictable. Luke Shaw was once again caught out as Raheem Sterling found Bernardo Silva, who fed David Silva, who so casually picked his spot.
The only surprise at that point was that City really slacked off when they were so on top.
Mourinho’s natural inclination in games like this, away to a side as good as City — is to defend deep, but he has a squad that is just so much better suited to attacking. It feels like it’s why they look better when matches descend into chaos, as kind of happened just with Martial’s penalty.
Before then, City had the game in complete control, having upped it in the manner they failed to do straight after the first goal. It naturally led to the second goal coming quite quickly, although the speed of Sergio’s shot was almost unnatural.
After United sloppily lost the ball in the middle of the field, City’s Riyad Mahrez fed the ball back to a surging Aguero, who then thundered the ball past De Gea and right into the roof of the net. It wasn’t so much a finish as a detonation.
The goal did nevertheless mean that United were on a negative goal difference, reflecting how De Gea is making fewer saves than the last two seasons — and thereby bailing the side out less — but he still wasn’t as culpable for the strike as Ederson was for United’s. The Brazilian gave away a stupid penalty by needlessly coming out and taking an attacker down.
The derby at that point looked set to fall into the oddly customary pattern since both these managers arrived in Manchester, with City displaying their clear superiority only for it to end up unnecessarily nervy and tense. But United never made City nervous, with the latter’s confident assurance shown in that luscious 44pass last goal.
After a move that began with centre-halves John Stones and Aymeric Laporte passing it among themselves, Guardiola’s side worked and weaved their way through for Ilkay Gundogan to calmly seal the game.