Saturday’s Manchester Derby provided the most anticipated pre-match preparations with nearly the whole world glued to their TV screens as Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho re-kindled their fierce rivalry for the first time in English football – at the final whistle, it was Guardiola’s Manchester City who drew first blood with a 2-1 victory at Old Trafford.
The famous derby provided fans and neutrals with 95 minutes of frenetic end-to-end football, this was football we are so accustomed to when it involves Mourinho and Guardiola with their rivalry stretching back to the time they were facing off as Real Madrid and Barcelona coaches respectively and Saturdays derby proved no different. The first half was sign of things to come in the future for Manchester City under Guardiola as they totally outclassed, out-fought and out-muscled United off the park on their own backyard in the first 40 minutes. The performance was reminiscent of the outstanding Barcelona side Guardiola managed for 4 glorious trophy-laden years. Those Barcelona sides played with a sheer fluidity and movement, brilliantly passing the ball at speed to tire and dumbfound opponents. On Saturday, fans were treated to a performance of a similar ilk as City carried on their impressive Old Trafford run and maintain their 100% winning start to the season.
From the first minute, City confidently ferried the ball around the pitch as they looked much more hungrier and fitter than Mourinho’s Red Devils who did not know whether to press them or sit back and hit on the counter. During the first half, United looked slow and laboured as they could not muster up any ideas to hamper City’s dominance despite Ibrahimovic’s consolation 3 minutes from half-minute after a bad mistake by new £17million goalkeeper Claudio Bravo.
While City’s play and style on the day should be lauded, so many of United’s deficiencies was of their own making. It should have come as no surprise as to how Guardiola would set up his side even without his star striker Sergio Aguero. This was a signature Guardiola performance while Mourinho put out a side that were unable to cope with City’s pace and movement; before the game, questions were asked to the reasoning of starting Jesse Lingard and Henrikh Mkhitaryan. On the face of it, both players stylistically provide Mourinho with a tactical to sit back and hit on the counter attack because of their pace and ability on the ball; however, both Lingard and Mkhitaryan had just recovered from injury so we could argue that the result was because of Mourinho’s ill-fated decision to start both players while Mata and Martial who were equally impressive in the recent victories against Bournemouth, Southampton and Hull had to sit out the match.
On top of that, the likes of Paul Pogba struggled grab a hold of the game as the movement and fluidity of Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva bypassed him. Yes, it is only his 3rd game back to the Premier League and he has had a solid start to his second spell at Old Trafford but Saturday’s performance showed that Mourinho would have to find a solution for Paul Pogba to show the kind of performances he displayed week in, week out at Juventus ; maybe switch United’s formation to a 4-3-3. Didier Deschamps made the same mistake at Euro 2016 as Pogba was asked to form a defensive midfield and was shackled to a defensive position along with N’golo Kante and on that evidence it showed as France fell victim to Portugal’s surprise European Championship victory. What the 4-3-3 would provide Pogba is protection as the French international thrives on the freedom to manoeuvre and control the game like he did so regularly on the left side of midfield where he enjoyed his best ever season at Juventus last season alongside Midfield enforcers Sami Khedira and Claudio Marchisio. After the changes to the formation through the introduction of an extra midfielder in Ander Herrera and striker Marcus Rashford at the restart, we could see that there was an improvement in Pogba’s game as United searched for an equaliser. For certain, Pogba would come good at Old Trafford and show the world why he could be considered as the best midfielder around but in order for that materialise, Mourinho would need find a formational situation quickly in order to get the best out of Pogba and the rest of his players.
On Saturday, United’s players were like statues as Manchester City enjoyed and thrived on a lions share of possession and they weaved and articulated themselves through United’s midfield with their slick passing game. In the build-up to City’s opener, Armenian international Henrikh Mkhitaryan gave Aleksander Kolarov so much room to launch his pass up field. For City’s second and decisive goal, United had plenty of bodies back in their own area and were not quick enough to anticipate on the ball hitting the post which allowed young striker Kelechi Iheanacho to double City’s lead under no pressure whatsoever.
Despite the defeat, United still contributed to the all out energetic and thrilling end-to-end football that we as fans experienced on Saturday, and were able to claw their way back into the game as they came back and dominated the United should not be discouraged by Saturday’s; certainly, fans will be distraught at losing to their closest rivals but Mourinho is a proven winner and if anyone can claw their back from the dust, the Portuguese manager has been there and done it in his illustrious managerial career and with an array of talent at his disposal, it would be relatively easy for Mourinho to pick his players up, start again and catch up with Guardiola’s City as we gather pace in what is thought to be the most highly anticipated Premier League season in its history. We are in for a frenetic showpiece.
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