Man United vs Man City – The tale of the Capulet’s and the Montagues

Just like a scene out of Romeo & Juliet, this game was set up to be a fight between two rival families striving to take hold of a city.

United brought there years of experience and dominance to the game while City brought their sheer abundance of talent and drive to beat their older brother. United gave Fletcher a rare start in the centre of midfield with a typical 4-4-2 formation with Wellbeck partnering Rooney while City played Aguero up front with Balotelli, Milner and Silva all in support.

As expected, the game had a high-octane start with end to end action, mostly utilising the space down the wings as full backs on both sides pushed up with United just dominating in the possession stakes. Fully aware that this level of commitment could not last for an entire 90 minutes, both teams settled down into their more usual strategies with both trying to play keep ball while also looking for space for the wide men to run into. The first 20 minutes saw United take more and more control over the game by closing down in the midfield and giving the City talent no time on the ball.

For all of their dominance, it came as a complete shock that City took the lead on the 21st minute. The City attackers found a rare bit of space around the United box with Silva and Milner being the focal points and it was Silva who squared the ball across to Balotelli who hit it first time and calmly slotted it in the bottom right hand corner from just outside the area United-0 City-1.  The atmosphere at Old Trafford was one of stunned silence and Balotelli’s celebration was similar to that of Cantona in days gone by with a nonchalant look around the stand as he lifted his shirt over his head to reveal a t-shirt with the words “Why Always Me?”.

My worry has always been that local derby’s that are built and built up can often end up being a boring affair, this early goal hopefully would at least expel this notion for another 70 minutes!

Annoyingly, there was very little else to talk about in the first half as United tried to pick up where they left off prior to the goal. For all their dominance on the ball, United were finding it difficult to break down the City defence and the only shot of note was from Anderson as he lurked on the edge of the area at a corner and picked up the ball as it was headed away only to kick it straight at Joe Hart in goal. Rooney began to come deeper and deeper in search for the ball as he has done in so many games before which made it much easier for the City midfield and defenders to compress the space on the pitch.

For all of those in the stands and at home who took their time, making a cup of tea or buying a pie, coming back for the second half, they could have quite easily missed another turning point in this game. Not 2 minutes into the second half, Evans was sent off for pulling Balotelli back just inches outside the penalty box. It appeared that United had gone to sleep.

Now United had a mountain to climb, a goal behind and a player down against undoubtably one of the most talented teams in the league. United, to their credit, tried to mount a few attacks with Ashley Young starting to get the on the ball more, but being a man down finally went against them on the 59th minute when Silva ran into the box, pulled off a sublime backheel to Milner who then slid the ball across the goal face for Balotelli to tap into the net. 2-0 Man City!

As a result of going 2 goals down, Sir Alex decided that enough was enough and changes had to be made. Nani and Anderson were taken off and Hernandez and Jones were brought on. To be fair, Nani had done very little apart from in the opening stages of the match and Anderson, although having done nothing wrong, had done little right either.

Things went from bad to worse only 2 minutes after the substitutions with some great interlinking play from the City attackers ending in a cross from Balotelli to be slid into the goal by who else but Aguero. 3-0 City. This was to be the last act of the game for Balotelli who was then substituted for Dzeko who within a minute was already putting shots across the United goal and keeping up what was now a continuous City assault.

A win here would not only put City 5 points clear of United in the league, it would also give a massive confidence boost to the club and could well be the turning point in the season and instill a belief that they could realistically win the title this year.

Aguero was substituted in the 75th minute for the ex-Arsenal player Nasri and Dzeko was sent up top on his own to see out the remainder of the game. United fans had started to leave the stadium at this point, but those who stayed on would have been glad they did as on the 80th minute Fletcher played a one-two with Hernandez and struck the ball perfectly to beat the keeper. United 1 City 3. I think the term too little too late was well suited to this United performance and it was time to pack up shop when Dzeko tapped in a shot from close range to make it 4-1  and then put a sublime ball through for Silva who nutmeged the keeper to make it 5-1 and make it United’s heaviest defeat ever to City. David Silva then returned the favour with a picture perfect pass through the United defence to allow Dzeko a chance on goal which he coolly took to end the game 6-1 to Manchester City.

As well as the clinical finishing in front of goal, City can also be very proud of the way their back line kept Rooney and Co out at the other end with Micah Richards a start performer on the day. The bookies had this game down as a home win, and like many of us I think we would not have been surprised if this was the outcome. However, I don’t think anyone could have quite imagined the demolition that City did over United. Once Evans was gone, it just created the space behind the back line as United pushed up higher to get an equaliser that allowed City to thrive and it was down hill from there.

It was certainly a day for the Blue side of Manchester, one that will be remembered for a very long time no doubt and bring even more anticipation for the return fixture between these two houses!