LOSING THEIR WAY
DERBY DAY FINDS MANCHESTER FALLING FROM GRACE AS THE POWERHOUSE OF ENGLISH FOOTBALL.
IT’S NOT often Manchester gets left behind, but there will be more than a few pangs of envy when United face City tomorrow. Not for the city considered the heart of the Northern Powerhouse the small-scale return of spectators that made last week’s North London derby feel a little more meaningful, nor the return to seminormality that heard ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ bounce down from The Kop on Sunday.
The continued Tier Three status at the other end of the East Lancs Road means tomorrow’s Manchester derby
will be played behind closed doors for the first and hopefully last time. One enduring image of the Covid-19 pandemic was the sight of Manchester’s mayor Andy Burnham standing alongside other local leaders on the steps of the town hall demanding the city isn’t forgotten about. The lockdown measures only add to the growing sense Manchester’s 30-year reign as the powerhouse of English football is under threat like never before.
While Liverpool bask in the glory of their first title victory since 1990 and Tottenham and Chelsea are leading a double-pronged title challenge from the capital, there is not much noise being generated about either half of Manchester as sixth prepares to meet seventh at Old Trafford tomorrow. From a City perspective, it is a scenario few would have envisaged when they smashed Watford 6-0 in the 2019 FA Cup final to complete English football’s first ever domestic Treble.
True, Liverpool had pushed them all the way in the title race but City came out on top in their last 22 domestic fixtures that season, the only blot Tottenham’s VAR-assisted triumph in their Champions League quarter-final.
Yet Pep Guardiola’s side are now into a second season during which the standards set in winning back-to-back titles with an incredible 100 and 98 points have undoubtedly dipped.
Defeat tomorrow would leave City only able to muster 99 points and you can forget the fact they are odds-on to triumph at Old Trafford. Few things have bust more accas than the eight games Manchester City have lost on the road since the start of last season.
The initial reasons for the drop-off are well-documented. The failure to replace Vincent Kompany and the injury that ruined fellow defender Aymeric Laporte’s campaign last term were clearly a factor.
But with Ruben Dias having filled some of that void and John Stones playing well enough to mean it is not a given that a fit Laporte starts tomorrow, some of these issues seem
to have shifted further up the pitch. For all his qualities, it certainly looks at the moment as though Rodri cannot be considered another Fernandinho, while injury has produced rather too much insight into what life could be like should Sergio Aguero head for pastures new at the end of the season.
Losing David Silva in the summer and a downturn in Kevin De Bruyne’s incredible creative statistics have meant – save for the traditional 5-0 win over Burnley a fortnight ago – the goals have flowed in nothing like the volume to which we have recently become accustomed.
Still in the Champions League and with Guardiola tied to a new longterm contract, it feels like City’s problems are surmountable – if they want it badly enough.
The bookies still rate them secondfavourites for the title behind Liverpool but if you look at the way the champions’ youngsters are busting a gut as Jurgen Klopp plots his way through an injury crisis, how Harry Kane and his Tottenham teammates increasingly embody Jose Mourinho’s work ethic, or the excitement being generated by Frank Lampard’s heady mix of bigmoney signings and young talent at Chelsea, you start to wonder whether everything has become a little bit too comfortable at the Etihad Stadium.
Too cosy is not an accusation that can be levelled across Manchester in the week United crashed out of the Champions League with a 3-2 defeat at RB Leipzig.
Given their incredible penchant for coming from behind in away Premier League games this season, it was perhaps inevitable they would leave themselves a bridge too far and at most clubs of United stature you would expect the manner of their exit to be a catalyst for change.
And yet United seem to have got themselves into a permanent state of flux. Incredibly, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer next week reaches two years at the helm since first taking temporary charge after Mourinho was sacked.
They have reaped the benefits of the one piece of decisive action taken in that time – signing Bruno Fernandes has had a transformative effect on the pitch. United always carry an attacking threat.
But their leaden-footed approach in other areas has been costly – allowing the
Paul Pogba saga to descend to a point where agent Mino Raiola felt emboldened enough to reopen his war of words with the club on the eve of such a crucial fixture; failing to address a leaky defence full of players failing to play up to their transfer fees; failing to take goalkeeper David De Gea out of the firing line.
Solskjaer has survived several socalled watershed moments before – not least the 6-1 home humiliation by Spurs a couple of months ago – and there is no indication United are about to pull the trigger this time, even if Mauricio Pochettino remains a perennial manager-in-waiting.
It is hard to escape the feeling the biggest protection for the United boss is his role as a human shield for chief executive Ed Woodward and a club hierarchy who have shown little sign of having a strategy for reinvigorating United’s on-field fortunes since Sir Alex Ferguson signed off with their last Premier League title in 2013.
So the feelgood factor will be in short supply at Old Trafford tomorrow – certainly compared to the last meeting in March when goals from Anthony Martial and Scott McTominay left Solskjaer’s name echoing around the packed stadium after City were beaten 2-0.
No supporter has been back into either of Manchester’s Premier League grounds in the nine months since those 73,000 fans headed for home. But it is not just in the stands that both City and United have some catching-up to do right now.