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Score: Man United 1 - 2 Man City
Goalscorers: Marcus Rashford 45' + 2'; David Silva 43', Nicolas Otamendi 54'
Because of just how entertaining a derby it was, and because of its significance on the title race, we felt this shouldn't be restricted to 5 Talking Points.. so here's the story of the most important Manchester Derby for eons, through 10 Talking Points
#10 Mistakes define the Manchester Derby
Jose Mourinho has often described his footballing philosophy as one of minimising mistakes... when the Portuguese has a hard look at this game, he will be furious with the little mistakes that perforated the game - and so will Guardiola.
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While City's first goal was more to do with sheer luck, and good positioning from Silva, and less with any major mistakes on United's part, although it was Lukaku who headed it down to Silva - Mourinho will still be furious that his team conceded such a straightforward goal from a set-piece.
On the second City goal, a silly foul from Herrera and an even worse clearance from Lukaku gifted the ball to Otamendi (Lukaku's right footed clearance smacked into the small of Smalling's back and rebounded).. and Mourinho will once again not be too pleased with the defensive nous of his big striker.
Meanwhile at the other end, Delph's and Otamendi's basic failure to read a cross into the box led to United's goal ... while some will also argue that the referee's mistake in booking Herrera for a dive rather than Otamendi for a foul in the City box also had a tangible effect on the game.
#9 Pep's Man City are more fun to watch than Pep's Barcelona
Lay down your weapons. Stop your frothing. Hear me out.
Pep Guardiola's team controlled, and used the ball in a way that no football team has ever done - that holy trinity in midfield and Lionel Messi passing the ball around with an ease that bordered on the absurd. Mostly, though, this passing was sideways, as much of a choke-hold as "parking the bus", controlling possession to ensure defensive stability - after all no opposition team can score if they don't even touch the ball.
This City side sacrifices a lot of this control for more incisive movement in between the lines - Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva at the heart of it as they run in and out of the opposition third - and use Sane and Sterling effectively on the flanks. This prevents most neutrals from dozing off even when City are playing a defensive-minded team, but also makes them far more vulnerable than the great Barcelona team that Guardiola managed... which segues neatly into my next point.
#8 Fabian Delph shows City are far from invincible
If anyone had walked around in August saying Fabian Delph and Ashley Young would be the Manchester clubs' first choice left-backs you'd have been laughed off the park. Circumstances and mistrust (in the cases of Danilo and Luke Shaw) have led to this fantastic fiction becoming fact - and while Young has taken to his new role with aplomb and put in yet another fantastic shift against the two best wingers in the league... Fabian Delph proved just how big a stop-gap measure he really is.
His failure to read routine passes was at times embarrassing - for the Rashford goal and for the Rashford chance - and he looked like a real weak link.
Guardiola will be hoping that Benjamin Mendy comes back to full fitness as soon as humanly possible
#7 Kevin de Bruyne's passing is out of this world
A talking point had to be dedicated to that pass he made to Bernardo Silva in the dying stages of the man. What started off looking like a trivela (an outside of the boot pass) ended up becoming a curled pass from the inside of his boot... how he gets the ball to bend its trajectory to his will makes for, well, magical viewing.
But it wasn't just that one moment.
It's his passing that made all the difference between the sides, his ability to curl the ball tantalizingly past defenders and onto attacker's paths enabling City to transition for standstill (or reverse) to full steam ahead in the blink of an eye.
it also highlighted United's main weakness...
#6 Manchester United without Paul Pogba are just another top-6 team
... and that's the fact that Paul Pogba was not present.
We cannot blame United, or Mourinho, for building his team around the superstar-skills of the irrepressible Frenchman, after all he is one of the few genuine world-class talents on show in the Premier League, a game-winner by his own right... but what happens when he has to take a leave of absence is that United lack the vim and vigour that he brings with himself onto the field.
Transitioning from defence to attack, sitting deep and counter-attacking, all this is made simpler when Pogba's athletic strides and immense vision (and technique) are on the pitch, while the effect he has on the overall personality of the team is almost tangible.
#5 Romelu Lukaku is more a cub right now than a full-grown leopard
No one feels Pogba's absence more than Romelu Lukaku. The striker, who after breaking Belgium's all-time goal-scoring record said "I don’t think many strikers of my generation have as many goals as me. I am like a leopard in the box.” looked toothless and a bit fragile out there in the heat of the derby.
While borrowing Zlatan Ibrahimovic's turn of phrase is alright, he still doesn't have the overwhelming personality and the consistency in performance that the Swede has - his hurried right-footed shot off Lingard's smart through reeked of a lack of self-confidence that no amount of bluster can hide while he really ought to have found something other than Ederson's face/neck from three yards out when Martial gifted it to him on a plate - the more chances he bottle in big games, the more his detractors will be... and even though I for one fully believe that it's just a matter of time before he comes good, the mad world of twitter-fed claustrophobic pressure may not be so kind on him.
Oh, and the less we speak about his defending the better
#4 Man City are walking to this title if other top teams keep getting over-awed
Manchester City have often won football games this season without as much kicking a football. Much of this is due to the immense hype that surrounds any half-decent Guardiola team (not without reason, may I hasten to add) and much of it due to the sheer overloads he creates on key areas of the pitch.
This leads to teams sitting back farther than they would have really liked - and this is allowing City to do two things.
a) Control possession and keep creating chances, chances which their players are simply too good to keep turning down
b) Hiding their own flaws simply because opposition teams don't commit enough forward to expose them
When United (in the first half) and Arsenal and Chelsea during the duration of their matches sat back and allowed City to dictate play, they played into Guardiola's hands.
Keep doing this and that 11 point gap will simply keep getting wider and wider as the season wears on.
#3 United will kick themselves over a missed opportunity
An eleven point gap with twenty-two matches to go is the closest to unsurpassable that a PL team can come in December, but United really ought to have made it 5, or at least kept it at 8.
Their passing, especially, in the first half was sloppy and hurried (note the preceding over-awed point), giving away possession far too easily while not taking big chances which came their way.
Man City were far from their best - and United's defensive shape worked well in keeping the Cityzens out - and they will be extra annoyed that they conceded two goals from set-plays... the one aspect of the game where United had the clear superiority on paper.
Even with Pogba out, this was a great opportunity to take points of City side that were vulnerable on the break and a touch lackluster in possession, and United bungled it.
#2 Pep Guardiola's philosophy is not without its release valves
Clue 1:Team A is leading Team B 2-1 with half an hour left to play. Manager of Team A takes of his sole striker and puts on a 6 ft + centre-back in his stead, pushing his central midfielder to play up top. Sort of.
With ten minutes to go, Team A are still holding onto the 1 goal lead... so they decide that everytime they win a corner, they'll send the no-one up, and everytime they get into the final third, they'll keep it by the corner flag. And they do it - unashamedly, brilliantly, effectively -keeping it in the corner for as much as 90 seconds at a stretch as they killin the game dead.
Clue 2: One of those teams were managed by Pep Guardiola and the other by Jose Mourinho.
Question: Who was the manager of Team A in this scenario above?
Two scrappy goals scored from set-plays, expert gamesmanship on and off the ball, killing the game dead when the game needed some hard killing dead... Pep Guardiola's men did all this and more as they proved their manager right - he and Mourinho are both twins when it comes to the matter of winning trophies... and both will do anything necessary to achieve it, even if it means a bit of philosophy has to be tossed to the wolves.
#1 What exactly constitutes a penalty?
When Nicolas Otamendi made contact with Ander Herrera's foot inside the City box, three things were mighty clear
a) Otamendi got none of the ball and all of the Spaniard
b) Herrera was going absolutely nowhere with the ball
c) Herrera was quite obviously looking for it.
Now, as per the laws of the game when a) has occurred, does the referee even need to consider b) and c)? Herrera's progress was obviously impeded by Otamendi's errant foot, but does the fact that he may or may not have done something with the ball were it not for Otamendi's challenge have anything at all to do with it?
Which is why Jose Mourinho was furious at the post-match interview, commending Michael Oliver for a good game (he did have a decent one, allowing the game to flow where many others would have made it a stop-start affair) but saying Oliver spoilt it by this one, game-changing decision.
Pep Guardiola, meanwhile, swatted the question aside - as any winning manager would.
Whether City got the rub of the green or not, the significance of such slices of luck, such decisions going in your favour (each team has this, United themselves were lucky not to concede a penalty at Arsenal... and so and so forth) on the overall title race simply can't be underestimated.
