The countdown to the Manchester derby begins! Manchester City picked up another win against West Ham on Sunday, another victory that shows the great character of Pep Guardiola’s team. However, all eyes will now be on next Sunday’s game at Old Trafford.
Both teams have Champions League games in midweek, but few of the City players who came from behind to beat the resilient Hammers will make the trip to Ukraine. Kevin De Bruyne, the man who beautifully set up David Silva’s winner, will travel to Abu Dhabi with his family – at City’s expense.
Many of his teammates will also jet off to the sun for a few days, and those flying to Ukraine will stay there for four days as Guardiola tries to prepare as best he can for a meeting with Jose Mourinho.
With three points in the bag and an eight-point lead, he can do that. Having almost managed a draw with Southampton in midweek, the Catalan picked a strong team to face the Londoners here, knowing full well that it would be a far tougher task than the league and form tables suggest.
David Moyes’ men had a plan and stuck to it. City had little space to work their magic and when they did have some, they usually used it to fire a shot well over the bar.
City have faced defensive teams at the Etihad Stadium all season, but they usually break through early enough that it wasn’t a problem. Here, however, they were too slow and allowed Angelo Ogbonna to take a corner from Aaron Creswell just before half-time. The Italian headed in powerfully to give the opposition their first lead over City in the Premier League since late August. Mourinho will have taken note of City’s problems at set pieces.
Guardiola has caused some dressing room riots on several occasions this season, even when his team was winning, and he would no doubt have been furious at his side’s poor first-half performance.
As he did last week at Huddersfield, City boss Gabriel Jesus brought on a defender, this time Danilo, to try and change the game and it seemed to make an instant difference.
City attacked the Hammers with the same energy that was missing in the first half, with Adrian making several saves to show that he wanted to permanently remove Joe Hart, who was on loan from City and therefore not allowed to play here, from the starting line-up.
But he couldn’t prevent Nicolas Otamendi equalising with a goal reminiscent of his old pal Sergio Aguero. The two Argentinians may look alike, but that wasn’t the only scary thing about the equaliser; the centre-back attacked the near post with the kind of killer instinct that made Aguero City’s all-time top scorer. It was half-time substitute Jesus who was freed by a clever back-heel from Raheem Sterling and ran into space to set up the goal.
Guardiola had changed City’s formation at half-time, bringing Jesus into attack and the Blues were too weak in midfield, with De Bruyne in defence and Silva in front of him. But the Catalan did not change the formation after his team had equalised. West Ham did not venture forward much with the score at 1-1, but there was no way City would settle for a point.
Sterling, the man who won the last two 2-1 victories in the dying moments, had a good chance after Adrian made his best save of the game to deny a shot from Jesus, but the in-form Englishman was unable to get a firm grip on his footing.
That was never a big problem for De Bruyne and Silva, and it was City’s influential duo that secured the win. De Bruyne, starting from his deeper starting position, effortlessly swung a superb curved cross that Silva acrobatically headed into the far corner. Adrian, for once, stood rooted to the spot.
Guardiola then changed City’s line-up to secure the win, even risking the use of Fernandinho, who had been rested anyway, to avoid a yellow card that would have kept him out of the derby.
And now to that game in a week’s time, and after the events of this weekend, the die seems to be cast. Paul Pogba’s red card at Arsenal on Saturday will keep him out of the game and perhaps remove any remaining doubts in Mourinho’s mind about how to approach the game. Having seen how well Huddersfield, Southampton and West Ham restricted City and exploited set pieces over the last week, he will surely be looking to repeat the feat.
And few teams are better equipped to do that. United not only have far better individual quality than City’s last three opponents, but they also have as strong a team as you could imagine.
While this may highlight the ideological differences between Mourinho and Guardiola, the Portuguese are unlikely to mind the inevitable criticism and online trolling when Maraoune Fellaini or Romelu Lukaku win a corner after sloppy marking by City.
After all, the Blues conceded goals this way at Huddersfield, were lucky not to have it happen at least twice against Southampton, and were punished by Ogbonna on Sunday.
Of course, City keep finding ways to win these games and that is to their credit. United are the only team in the country with a 100% home record this season but if there is anyone who can tear them apart it is Guardiola’s firebrands.
At the same time, United are probably the only team capable of inflicting City’s first defeat of the season. United’s tradition may demand an attacking performance, but Mourinho makes no apologies for his much-maligned approach to the big games and without Pogba he may feel even more vindicated than usual.
And after City have shown their only real weakness in the last three games, they are practically begging the arch-pragmatist to field a team of giants and get the ball into the box.
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There is a lot at stake at Old Trafford. City could move eleven points clear with a win, while United could cut the gap to five and give the Blues something to think about before they face Spurs a week later. In such circumstances, the two managers are more likely to stick with what they know.
For this reason, this could be the fiercest clash between the styles of Mourinho and Guardiola since Inter’s famous win at Barcelona seven years ago. Let the games begin.
