United humbled by rampant City; Manchester United 1 Manchester City 6




United continued their busy week with the visit of local rivals, and potential title challengers Manchester City for one of the most eagerly anticipated Manchester derbies in many years. With the victor claiming top spot, much more than local pride was at stake as two unbeaten records were on the line, and a chance to send out a message to the chasing pack was one both sides were desperate to take. Having rested many players for last weeks trip to Anfield, United returned to more or less full strength, with only the absence of Tom Cleverley and Nemanja Vidic hindering the reds.

United began the game very brightly, with Ashley Young in particular isolating Micah Richards well down the left hand side, winning a few early free kicks and corners applying some early pressure. Whilst Fletcher and Anderson were able to enjoy large spells of possession, they ultimately failed to deliver any telling quality against a rugged and well organised City defence, who were competently absorbing what United had to offer. At the other end, David Silva was enjoying yet another brilliant afternoon, weaving in between a frightened United defence, who appeared to have no answer to the young Spaniard. Inevitably, it was a moment of individual brilliance from the much maligned Mario Balotelli which broke the deadlock on 21 minutes, as the Italian striker’s curling shot found its way into the bottom corner past the helpless De Gea. On the balance of play, it was harsh on United to go into the break a goal down, but Joe Hart had yet to be tested despite the reds enjoying large spells of the ball.

At 1-0 United were still in with a shout of turning the game around in the second half, however, disaster struck just a minute in as Jonny Evans was sent off for clearly fouling Balotelli as last man, leaving the ref no choice but to show Evans the red card, and all but end United’s realistic prospects of a result. What followed was a lesson in how to play against ten men, as a Silva inspired City inflicted United’s worst home defeat in over 50 years with a mixture of fluid football, and shambolic defending. City doubled their lead on the hour mark, with Balotelli tapping in at the far post, and soon made it three through Aguero who tapped home Richards’ cross.

United were seemingly on the end of a hiding, but were given a lifeline through Fletcher on 81 minutes, whose superb curling shot found the top corner, and gave the reds a glimmer of hope in recovering what seemed an impossible situation. It wasn’t to be for United though, and a chaotic final 4 minutes saw a kamikaze attempt to try and retrieve the game end in disaster, as City added a further three goals on the break, firstly through substitute Dzeko, then Silva, and the rout was completed by Dzeko, ending a thoroughly miserable afternoon for the red half of Manchester. Next for United, a trip to Aldershot in the carling cup.

Ratings

De Gea – 5 Helpless against the onslaught.

Smalling – 6 Attacked well when United had 11 men.

Ferdinand – 4 Outpaced with alarming ease, failed to marshal the defence when needed most.

Evans – 4 Suicidal red card.

Evra – 4 Constantly caught out in the final minutes of the game.

Nani – 4 Frustrating afternoon, careless in possession.

Fletcher – 6 Battled hard and scored wonderful goal.

Anderson – 4 Gulf in class between him and Silva/Toure alarming.

Young – 6 United’s only real attacking threat all game.

Rooney – 6 Fought till the end despite being out of position 2nd half.

Welbeck – 6 Tireless worker and tidy on the ball, badly lacked support.

Subs

Hernandez – 5 Barely got a touch in the final minutes.

Jones – 4 Should have shut up shop in embarrassing finale.



About Steve Ferguson 886 Articles
Steve Ferguson had taken over & re-branded The Faithful MUFC website back in the summer of 2014 and is now the owner and editor of the site. Steve, from Ashton-Under-Lyne in Greater Manchester, is a 35-year-old life long Manchester United fan, travelling over the globe to see the Reds play. Steve has been lucky enough to be at both the 1999 and 2008 Champions League finals, seeing Manchester United lift the biggest trophy in the World, none more exciting than that faithful night in Barcelona in 99. The website is a blog, but also hopes to deliver the latest Manchester United news from around the internet too, linked up with our growing twitter account which is @TheFaithfulMUFC, give it a follow as we will follow you back as soon as we can.

3 Comments

  1. Like you said, United enjoyed the better of the play up until City scored—they chased the game and then Evans saw red. The game changed radically with 10 men and the last 3 goals where just plain schoolboy stuff. Remember 1996 my United fans and take note—City beat United 5-1 and United also lost to Southampton 6-2 within the span of two weeks. Oh and by the way, United won the league that year 🙂

  2. What an incredibly insane article. Hating Fergie and by extension United appears to cloud the judgement of most antii United fans.. This is about as objective as the Tea Baggers views on Obama.

    Fiirst – United were well in the game when all 11 players were on the field and an objective person might say that they were the team that looked most likely to score. Silva is an outstanding player that was allowed to look all of that with United chasing the game and affording him the space to be even more dangerous.
    Judging how well both teams will do based on this skewed game shows your football ignorance.. United are 5 points back after playing the very top teams in the EPL.. City have Pool at Anfield, Chelsea at the Bridge and an Arsenal team that will surprise them.

    Common in the above teams is their formation, ie, they will play with 3 MF players and one ( Song, Mikel & Lucas Leiva ) will man mark Silva and that will have a huge impact on the way City play..

    Further City have not been plagued by injuries at the back – lose Kompany and they will suffer – lose Lescott and they will struggle…All is well with Balotelli at the moment, however the boy hasn’t had a lobotomy so be assured that there will be further periods of insanity in the future..

  3. Fair play to City.

    After Robinho, they abandoned the “galactico” route, and built a non-obvious team with a non-obvious manager. The established sky 4 blackmailed UEFA into introducing “fair” play rules which would allow us to keep our massive debt, but still shut City out, but it was too late.

    City hammered every team they played before us (except for a draw at Fulham).

    We can pretend this isn’t happenning, like Richard, or we can learn a lesson in humility and spend big in the next 3 or 4 transfer windows.

    That was possibly the best football I’ve ever seen at old trafford. We should keep Rooney and Young, if we can, and build a new squad around them. Its going to be tough to persuade players to come to us rather than City, but SAF has rebuilt time and again.

    He looked very old on Sunday, but i think he can do it one last time.

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