Manchester City keep their heads to banish derby memory of last season despite not quite hitting perfection
In April City were guilty of losing their bearings and getting turned over by United, but here they produced their best football when it mattered most to iron out another of the few mistakes remaining
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Your support makes all the difference.Manchester City did not make many mistakes last season, but they did in this fixture, and this year they want to be even better. So this afternoon, coasting at home against Manchester United, they threatened to take their take foot off the gas, but then decided to speed off into the distance.
This 3-1 derby win felt unusual, comprehensive but not quite complete. City were the much better team, creating enough chances to win by a distance, barely giving United a touch of the ball in an uneven second half. And yet even then this did not look like City at their absolute best. It was not a perfect performance, because Anthony Martial scored from the penalty spot after another Ederson misjudgement. It was not a 90-minute performance, because of how City dropped their intensity after a thrilling first 15 minutes.
But then when City can win their biggest game this comfortably, staying top of the table, and opening up a 12-point lead over their biggest rivals, how much does that matter?
It was impossible this afternoon to get away from the spectre of the 3-2 game here seven months ago. That should have been one of the greatest afternoons in City’s history but turned into one of their lowest points of the Guardiola era. That afternoon, with the earliest title ever within reach, City played one half of the game of their lives, surged into a 2-0 lead and missed chances to go four or five up. That afternoon the City fans started to ole far too early, their over-confidence soaked through to the players, and United surged back into the game to trample their dreams into pieces.
All afternoon here, that mistake hung over Manchester City. Would they be so complacent again? Would they be so sloppy? There was little prospect, given the difference in level between the two teams, of United out-playing City here. But there is always the possibility, in games like this, of City managing to beat themselves.
And when City let a brilliant start turn into something a bit softer and more shapeless, it felt as if they were set to make the same mistake. That intense pressure they had applied to United was allowed to drop, as if for some reason they had decided to take it easy and turn down the heat. It threatened to be a return to the risky complacency of last season. Rather than pressing from the front they let United pass the ball. Rather than winning second balls they started to let United’s midfield three assert themselves. Rather than tightening their hold on a game, they let it start to drift away from them.
That meant that second half of the first half was almost unrecognisable from its opening. It was a slower game, more even, more open. It made you wonder whether a sharper, more ruthless side than United would have been able to take advantage. It was as if their counter-attacking was never incisive enough to cut through Fernandinho, scurrying in front of City’s defence, mercilessly shutting down every incursion.
So even though City got to half time at 1-0, it never quite felt like City at their best. It felt like a City team keeping something in reserve, or perhaps not quite being forced to deliver their finest football. And even though Sergio Aguero scored their second soon after the restart, even that felt at odds with the run of the game. One quick sequence of United mistakes and City successes, run together to produce a goal out of nowhere. The Ederson mistake and Anthony Martial penalty was even more surprising and even more out of place.
Everyone knew that this was the crucial spell in the game. Remember that last year Paul Pogba’s opener, pulling it back to 2-1, was followed by two more goals in the next 16 minutes. Once hit on their glass jaw, City lost their bearings and were hit twice more. The challenge for City then was to keep their heads this time. Not to let one goal become three.
And this was the point when City did start to play something closer to their best. The final 30 minutes, after Martial’s goal, were the most one-sided spell of the game. United never once looked like equalising, and when Ilkay Gundogan came into midfield, they could barely get a touch of the ball. City grabbed back hold of possession and with United opening up, they could cut them open on the break. There were 44 passes in the move before Gundogan swept in the crucial third.
That level of control and calm, not letting the occasion get to them, not losing sight of their plan, was exactly what City did not manage to do in April. But on Sunday they considered making the same mistake twice, and then quickly decided against it. The players looked determined to make good on their April errors, and they were true to their word.
In that sense it was like the 0-0 draw at Anfield, another of the few places where City messed up last year. This time they went in with a plan, weathered the storm, frustrated Liverpool and with a cooler penalty from Riyad Mahrez they would have won 1-0.
If City are going to bring this focus and ruthlessness towards ironing out every other error they made last season then they are not going to have many other errors left to address. Even in their pursuit of perfection, even after 100 points, they look like a team still making small forward steps.
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