Spiritually, if not actually, this was a drubbing as heavy as Liverpool dolled out at Old Trafford, a 90-minutes evisceration of one football club and its floundering leadership and its substandard personnel by another playing a different game, from a different planet. Manchester City were magnificent, playing fluent and richly detailed football, guided by the principles of creativity and control. What were Manchester United? As Roy Keane said on TV at half-time, “I give up.”
Tottenham, last week, was a respite but this was reality biting again for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who endured the ignominy of his name being sung repeatedly – by City’s supporters rather than United’s. He played the first half with 3-5-2 and the second with 4-2-3-1, he brought on Jadon Sancho, Marcus Rashford – hell, he even brought on Donny van de Beek. But nothing, absolutely nothing, bridged the canyon.
City should have scored double, maybe triple the goals they did, but then again it was Pep Guardiola’s game plan to keep possession and minimise risk to negate United’s capacity on counterattacks. They were content to knock the ball around and keep United chasing it, and Guardiola said he didn’t make any substitutions because his starting XI was so comfortable. They were like Floyd Mayweather, toying with a bum-of-the-month. They completed more passes – 753 – than any visitors to Old Trafford in the Premier League since Opta began recording data in 2003-04.
Guardiola had no striker, just his whole team – it sometimes felt – playing as false nines, which rather invalidated Solskjaer’s decision to start with three centre backs. A horrific Eric Bailly own goal and wonderful, opportunistic strike by Bernardo Silva were the only times City found David De Gea’s net but nobody who witnessed this will ever forget the technical, mental, philosophical and personnel disparity between these supposed peers. “Five more years!” sang City fans in Solskjaer’s direction.
It seemed a derby between teams from different leagues and when you compared Aaron Wan-Bissaka’s ugly struggles with the ball to Joao Cancelo’s effortless mastery of it, two teams playing different sports. United had so many one-dimensional footballers whereas all of City’s are flexible, take on board tactical nuance and excel at both sides of the game. That is Guardiola’s true masterpiece. An example: Gabriel Jesus playing as a sometimes-winger, sometimes-striker, sometimes-supplementary-full-back, sometimes-midfielder and, out-of-possession, pressing and tackling frenziedly. Compare that to the dud, “straight-lines” running of Mason Greenwood and Marcus Rashford when they trying to play as Cristiano Ronaldo’s support.
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Perhaps no United player was humiliated more than Fred, who left the pitch to cheers – of relief – by his own supporters, having spent 80 minutes chasing his tail as Ilkay Gündogan, Rodri, Bernardo Silva and Kevin De Buryne popped the ball around him. When City scored so early, and with such slapstick assistance from Solskjaer’s men, you were braced for a similar result to United’s 5-0 defeat v Liverpool but Guardiola has never measured excellence purely by the scoreboard. Asked whether he was disappointed at not scoring more he replied “no, it’s okay,” with a Zen-like smile.
That opener began with the pitiful spectacle of Wan-Bissaka trying to play out from the back. He hacked a horrible ball straight to the feet of Rodri, who spread the play enabling Kyle Walker to attack down the right. Gündogan might have converted Walker’s cross but arrived with his body in the wrong position and could only knock it back across goal.
United cleared – badly – and Cancelo went down the left, with all the time and space in the world, to line up a cross. He bent in a beauty: fast, dipping, and arced to a perfect scoring area the near post. Bailly, his mind already scrambled by six minutes of City’s mesmeric football lesson, made a grim attempt at clearing, upending himself and shanking the ball past De Gea.
For the next 20 minutes, Guardiola’s players wove patterns while Solskjaer’s froze stayed woodenly in their formation, fearful and hoping for the best. Remarkably, it should have been 1-1. Fernandes at last got his team to the edge of City’s area with some pass-and-move and fed Luke Shaw, who crossed to Ronaldo, who with peerless technique connected with a thunderous volley. But Greenwood fluffed the rebound after Ederson saved well.
The next period was all about De Gea. He was a one-man resistance effort, executing marvellous saves from Jesus, Cancelo, De Bruyne and Lindelof – yes, Lindelof, who tried to emulate Bailly and miskick it past his own goalkeeper. Then, just as it seemed United would escape to the break just one down, Bernardo struck.
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Gundogan found him on the right and he came infield before switching play to Cancelo with a smart square ball. Cancelo, again afforded freedom, curled a wicked, dipping cross to the back post. Shaw ball-watched and Bernardo stole in behind him then leapt supplely and met it with the outside of his left boot to squeeze the ball in at the post past a surprised and scrambling De Gea.
Solskjaer removed Bailly at half-time and reverted to a back four, introducing Jadon Sancho on the right wing but nothing improved and on a rare occasion when Sancho had scope to dribble, Cancelo took the ball off his toes, like an adult confiscating something from a child. After Greenwood managed United first shot (though not a good one) in 35 minutes, Rashford replaced him but immediately tried to engage Walker in a foot race and lost.
By the end, United’s only solace was that this result will look okay in the history books. De Bruyne miscued a good chance, Stones knocked another wide and a Foden shot, which beat De Gea, struck the post. He had taken a perfect touch to tee himself up, having been released by a perfect De Bruyne pass and the move began when Van de Beek gave the ball away. Even if it didn’t end in a goal it was another sequence where the gulf between the sides was terrifying.
Manchester United (3-4-2-1) D de Gea 8 — E Bailly 3 (J Sancho 45min, 5), V Lindelof 4, H Maguire 5 — A Wan-Bissaka 3, S McTominay 4, Fred 3 (D van de Beek 80), L Shaw 4 (A Telles 73) — B Fernandes 7, M Greenwood 5 (M Rashford 66, 6) — C Ronaldo 6.
Manchester City (4-3-3) Ederson 6 — K Walker 7, J Stones 7, R Dias 7, J Cancelo 9 – B Silva 8, Rodri 7, I Gundogan 7 — G Jesus 8, K de Bruyne 7, P Foden 8.
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Referee M Oliver.
Attendance 73,086.
