This was a thunderingly competitive derby at times, a game of intensity, feeling and occasional spite. On the TV gantry and in the podcast studios, the coterie of former Manchester United players who have been central to the news agenda recently must have loved it.
‘It’s a daarby.’ Former United captain Roy Keane likes to say, the Irish accent deepening in direct parallel to his habitual disapproval of most of what he watches at Old Trafford.
Well this one looked like one and felt like one. Keane would have been at home in it.
Referee Anthony Taylor showed yellow early on to Diogo Dalot and Luke Shaw when – certainly in the first instance – he could have reached for red. Then Harry Maguire and Bernardo Silva – hardly the two angriest men in the north-west – grappled by the hoardings in front of the Stretford End. With each coming together of red and blue bodies, the temperature in this great stadium rose.
To the likes of Keane, Gary Neville, Paul Scholes and Wayne Rooney – a group whose criticism is known to land so heavily in the United dressing room – this will have been entirely recognisable and frankly we have missed this in Manchester.
It’s been a one-sided and muted rivalry too often in recent years. United have had their occasional successes – not least in the 2024 FA Cup final – but few victories have felt as redemptive and as visceral as this.
Manchester United dismantled rivals Man City with a dominant display under Michael Carrick
After being heavily criticised by Roy Keane (above) and fellow ex-Man United player pundits, the Red Devils put in a throwback performance to show exactly what they are capable of
The win has returned a feel-good factor to Old Trafford – whether it lasts remains to be seen
United were invigorated and emboldened by new voices on the training ground and helped in no small measure by players operating in their best positions. Bruno Fernades at ten. Amad Diallo on the right side of attack. Kobbie Mainoo holding. Simple, really.
They began well and never looked back and by the time Mason Mount slid in yet another disallowed goal – there were three in all – in added time City had been emasculated in a manner in which we have rarely seen. On the touchline the veteran Brazilian midfielder Casemiro was by now riding piggy back on the shoulders of his latest manager Michael Carrick.
Whether United build on this magnificent throwback performance remains to be seen. They have been here before on two or three occasions and stumbled. City, meanwhile, cannot play anything like this again if they are to challenge Arsenal for the Premier League title and compete seriously in the latter stages of European competition.
It was in the media room of the Bernabeu at the start of December – after City had actually beaten Real Madrid in the Champions League – that Guardiola warned of the improvement his team had to make if they were win anything this season. In the first half that night, they had been run ragged by Real like they were for 95 minutes here. They got away with in Spain but not on this occasion.
City are missing players, especially in defence, while their holding midfield titan Rodri is short of his supreme best following injury. Here Guardiola asked 20-year-old Max Alleyne to play in the heart of the defence. He was on loan at Watford three weeks ago but has been recalled as defensive cover. He played against Brighton and Exeter, in the FA Cup, and coped okay. He did not cope here and was replaced at half-time, with City already hanging on.
So there is mitigation for City. They started this game looking like a jigsaw with some of the pieces forced into the wrong places and ended it with the whole thing in pieces. But they were culpable in ways that are less excusable too.
Phil Foden’s use of the ball was dreadful and he didn’t survive the half-time inquest either. The first United goal, meanwhile, came from a City free-kick deep in the home team’s half that was executed so badly that their opponents were able to turn it in to a four on two counter attack.
Carrick made a series of positional tweaks that made a significant difference in the match
He brought Kobbie Mainoo back into the fold and played players in their most natural positions
Erling Haaland was bettered all day by the excellence and hunger of Maguire and Lisandro Martinez. At the base of the midfield, Casemiro and the reinstated Mainoo we simply more eager, quicker and better than those in blue.
The City goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma did his best to hold back the tide on his own. The Italian made some wonderful saves. But the task was too great, his team too vulnerable and too open.
United beat City at the Etihad Stadium last season but that was different. It was scratchy and, frankly, lucky. This was not that. This was a victory carved out of desire and a reawakening of a belief. At the end Carrick led his players on a lap of honour.
Keane and his friends wouldn’t have liked that bit but you can’t have everything.
