Another massive triumph for Pep’s style over Jose’s grit... and this one was personal MOAN ALL YOU LIKE MOURINHO, BUT HE’S GOT YOUR NUMBER

THERE was no manic dash on to the pitch, he did not collar Anthony Martial and furiously tell him he spent too much time behind the ball.

Pep Guardiola left it to his staff and to his players to field and share the adulation teeming down from the enclosure housing the away fans. A firm handshake with Jose Mourinho and that was pretty much it, The City boss was off to enjoy this one on his own.

This was about more than another elegant step towards an inevitable title, it was about more than setting records. This was personal. If you consider their history, it could have been nothing else. It is 10 wins and six draws in 20 meetings after yesterday.

Now you can say not only does Guardiola pretty much have Mourinho’s number, he towers above him on the purists’ high ground.

Manchester City were far from their magnificent best yet there was still only one team worth watching here.

Never mind the Mourinho nonsense about the referee, there was a gulf in quality and ambition between these two teams, and that was reflected by the result.

And there is also a clear gap in vision between these two coaches.

When the team-sheet dropped, the knee-jerk reaction was to laud a sense of Jose adventure. Naive in the extreme. Personnel does not make a bus, tactics do.

Whether it works or not, a system at Old Trafford where United have only 35 per cent possession just feels wrong. It will not be commonplace, not even with this manager in charge, but it is worth noting United have now only had the majority of possession in half of their 16 Premier League games.

This is Manchester United, for goodness sake.

That, though, is what you get with Mourinho. He is not going to buy into any mistyeyed concept of a ‘way’ a club should play its football.

Anyone protesting otherwise will be met by a long list of trophies, which he knows off by heart, of course.

But sometimes, it’s just not good to look at. It is a small wonder it took 40 minutes for some pockets off the crowd to start urging United to attack.

Thankfully, for everyone concerned, after David Silva had hooked in the opener from a scruffy corner, Mourinho had no choice but to start doing just that.

It would not be a surprise if, in games such as this and the 0-0 draw at Liverpool, this squad of very talented players did not become at least mildly mutinous.

It would not be a surprise if they pleaded with Mourinho just to let them have a crack at outplaying an elite opponent.

If they did it at half-time, after Marcus Rashford had capitalised on Fabian Delph’s mistake, it fell on deaf ears. Even though Nicolas Otamendi’s winner was the result of another piece of shocking United defending, it was deserved.

It was deserved even though City were not as incisive as they can be.

Indeed, some of Mourinho’s pre-match intelligence was proven to be insightful. There was the odd tactical foul, the odd spot of simulation, Gabriel Jesus proving adept at both. And don’t believe for one moment Guardiola does not have a devious streak to match Mourinho’s.

Do believe he gets a bit of an easy ride at times, not least from the FA in that Nathan Redmond case, for example.

The sort of sarcastic clapping of Michael Oliver after one decision went in City’s favour might not have gone unnoticed had it come from a coach other than Guardiola.

But his approach to the game cuts him an awful lot of understandable slack.

He did not need to come to Old Trafford and be the man on the front foot, did not need to be the aggressor. Yet he knows no other way. The irony here was that City’s two goals were things of rare ugliness.

It did not have to be a Guardiola masterclass.

Because in many more ways than one, Pep has got Jose’s number.

Sp Super Cup La Liga Sp Cup Sp Cup La Liga

Super Cup

PL

EFL Cup

PL PL