This Manchester derby will have two Davids and no Goliath for the first time in a long time.
In what has grown to be one of the most renowned rivalries in international football, Manchester City will play Manchester United on Sunday. This match, however, has new meaning because, for the first time in sixteen years, neither team is meeting the expectations of the supporters.
We’re depressed. During a pregame press conference on Friday, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola expressed his sympathy for the players.
Guardiola, who has won numerous titles and is considered the world’s greatest manager, is going through his worst coaching run to date.
Manchester City has only won one of their last ten games, despite winning six of the previous seven English Premier League titles.
Guardiola, whose club has recently lost to Juventus, Tottenham, and Liverpool without scoring, stated, “We need to shoot more.” The Catalan coach acknowledged his team’s shortcomings and stated, “We need to defend better.” With his club currently ranked fourth in the Premier League, he continued, “We have to avoid mistakes.”
In contrast, suffering is more prevalent in Manchester’s other half. Since the renowned manager Alex Ferguson retired in 2013, Manchester United has not won a Premier League championship.
The team had a terrible start to the season under its previous manager, Erikten Hag, and now lies in the bottom half of the Premier League league, in 13th place.
With the hiring of Portuguese manager Ruben Amorim, United may have hope in the future.However, early on, Amorim’s new structure and style of play have yielded inconsistent results.
Amorim’s first Premier League game as manager ended in a disappointing draw against Ipswich Town, while the next game ended in a resounding 4-0 triumph over Everton. Losses against Arsenal and, most recently, Nottingham Forest caused United supporters’ euphoria to morph into depression, so the high didn’t last long.
During a pregame press conference on Thursday, Amorim admitted that both clubs are now having trouble. The 39-year-old coach stated, “I can’t live it like a normal derby like it should be, two great teams fighting for the title, and it’s not that in this moment.”
The injury to Rodrigo Hernández Cascante, also known as Rodri, Manchester City’s outstanding defensive midfielder, is the root of the team’s problems.
Regarding Rodri’s absence, Guardiola stated on Friday that “we are playing this season without the best player.” The Spanish midfielder tore his anterior cruciate ligament in September. He recently won the Ballon dOr, which is awarded to the world’s best player. As he heals from the terrible injury, he will be out for the rest of the season.
The fact that Manchester United is in the bottom half of the table shows how widespread their problems are. Its goalie, Andr Onana, has made disastrous errors in the last two games, giving the opposition easy goals.
Regarding Onana’s most recent error, in which he sent the ball to the opposition during Manchester United’s Europa League victory over Czech team Viktoria Plze, Amorim stated, “We are trying to build up a lot with the goalkeeper.” Amorim said, downplaying the importance of the mistake in light of a game that United ultimately won, “We managed to help Onana like he did in the past.”
Both teams have a similar ray of light despite their unsettling recent performances: their strikers. Erling Haaland, the outstanding forward for Manchester City, continues to share the top spot on the Premier League scoring list. Fifteen games into the season, the Norwegian has scored thirteen goals.
Rasmus H. Jlund, a young Danish striker for Manchester United, has only scored twice in the Premier League thus far this season, but he has been scoring in other competitions. H Jlund has given United much-needed firepower with five goals in his previous five appearances in all competitions.
Manchester United was the overwhelming favorite in every modern Manchester derby until 2008, when the ultrawealthy Sheikh Mansour of the United Arab Emirates took over from Manchester City.
City has been the favorite since Ferguson retired from United in 2013.
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