Where once a trip to Old Trafford was something to be dreaded for any Manchester City side, Pep Guardiola’s Cityzens these days seize upon the opportunity to paint their once-feared rivals’ side of town a nice shade of blue once more with an easy 3-0 victory over a totally out-classed United on Sunday to reassert their dominance.
A decisive brace from Erling Haaland before a selfless assist to Phil Foden from the Norwegian Viking to delightfully tap home a third took Pep Guardiola’s men nine points clear of a demoralized United just 10 games into the Premier League season.
United last won the league in Alex Ferguson’s final season in charge, in 2012/13, after which the Red Devils consistently lagged far behind their local rivals.
With the clubs clearly worlds apart not just on the pitch, that dismal United run looks realistically destined to prevail for another season, at least. Fault-finding and finger-pointing have become the usual convenient excuses for the club and their fans to hide behind, with their American owners, the Glazer family, being the most popular scapegoats for the once highly-revered club’s major downfall since the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson.
In fact, adding insult to injury, the travelling City support took great delight to taunt the home fans with chants expressing the hope that United’s unpopular owners, the Glazer family, would be sticking around for “10 more years”.
Initial optimism that the Glazers would sell the club have been misplaced, with British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe now looking most likely to settle for only a minority stake after a year of protracted negotiations.
United’s massive Humpty Dumpty-like fall – supposedly in major part impacted by the Glazers – has on the reverse seen City rise as the predominant force in English football, with substantial financial backing from the deep pockets of Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour.
However, it would be only too convenient to use money as the force majeure accounting for the huge disparity in the performances of both clubs on and off the pitch as United themselves have clearly out-spent City in the transfer market in recent years with the wasted millions having achieved hardly anything substantial in terms of results on the pitch in the process.
Glazers aside as the popular whipping boys, one need not be a football guru to realize that excellent football management savvy involves a lot more than just being chummy, or, on the reverse, overly tough with one’s squad. A good case in point would be United boss Erik ten Hag opting to leave expensively-acquired attacking talent in Antony and Mason Mount on the bench on Sunday despite his side’s struggles to score goals this season.
Across town on the blue side of Manchester, City have within a short period of time successfully mobilized a nifty, super slick operation since the takeover by Sheikh Mansour and the timely appearance of a certain Pep Guardiola behind the scenes to far outdistance themselves from not only their Manchester rivals.
Guardiola is now into his eighth season at the Etihad and doesn’t look likely to ease his foot off the pedal at all.
“I know what we have done. I didn’t expect it,” he said when asked if he had any idea at all how the change in fortunes for the clubs would come about, especially after his seventh win at Old Trafford as City boss.
“I said many times we are in the same direction — the chairman, sporting director, manager and the players, we go there. When we lose or things aren’t going well we don’t find blame for someone. We work out what we have to do better and find solutions.”
While he had pushed the right buttons at Ajax, Ten Hag is now finding it increasingly difficult to find the right’ solutions for a season that threatens to further spiral out of control into a freefall zone.
Despite the Dutchman having initially enjoyed plenty of plaudits for his first season in charge as he brought United back to the Champions League and ended a six-year trophy drought by lifting the League Cup, another period of heavy investment in the last summer transfer window has not brought results on the pitch but seen United going back-pedalling instead at an alarming rate.
Five defeats from their opening 10 league games means the club have made their worst start since 1986/87, while at the same time are in dire, imminent risk of failing to make the Champions League knockouts.
Ten Hag has noticeably been making some patchy decisions that have directly impacted the pitch in terms of performances, as in the case of his opting to replace striker Rasmus Hojlund again, which was met with an immediate chorus of disapproval by the Old Trafford crowd for the second time this season, followed by thousands marching out in disgust after Foden’s goal 10 minutes from time.
“It’s different levels,” said former United midfielder Roy Keane. “The United players are just short in every aspect, technically and tactically. It’s a long way back for this team.”
Ten Hag has been fortunate for having been largely shielded from criticism so far as the main frustration had been directed towards the Glazers all this while. However, pressing questions are beginning to be asked of the former Ajax boss as an intolerant, hostile fan base is incensed with United languishing eighth in the table, eight points adrift of the top four.
By contrast, bitter rivals City are now aiming to become the first side to win the English top flight for a fourth consecutive year.