Manchester United 2-0 Manchester City: Interim coach gets off to a sparkling start
Manchester City may have had 67 per cent possession in the end but it was Manchester United who ran the show. Here at Old Trafford, in Michael Carrick’s first game in his second stint as interim coach, United had five goals in the back of the net by the end of the game. Only two counted, three chalked off for what was on occasion the finest margins of offside.
It didn’t matter because Bryan Mbeumo had opened the scoring and after Patrick Dorgu made it 2-0, the entire stadium was purring; the noisy neighbours had been silenced, and City were heading to potentially a title-hopes-killing nine points behind leaders Arsenal. That is, if the Gunners manage to beat Nottingham Forest.
United of course needed the win, 17 games and counting down all that is left to qualify for the Champions League and get back on track in the journey to revive a slumbering mythical beast. But if they did manage to gain three valuable points in the race to Europe, but in the process also prevent their local rivals from winning a seventh title under Pep Guardiola, then that was just a highly welcome bonus.
With Amorim gone, Carrick followed Darren Fletcher in setting up in a 4-2-3-1 shape. Surprisingly, Matheus Cunha and Benjamin Sesko were benched. The returning Amad Diallo and Mbeumo were thrust back into the squad, the latter as the focal point in attack.
United conceded possession and hoped to play on the counter attack, an approach reminiscent of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s counter-attacking setups from 2019 to 2021. But if Carrick borrowed a page off the book of his competitor for the job last week, Guardiola appears to have been entirely clueless how to deal with a system Solskjaer used to defeat him four times in nine meetings, and do a league double over the Spaniard in the 2019-20 season.
A sizzling United started brightly and in the third minute Harry Maguire had risen but failed to direct his header on target from Bruno Fernandes’ corner kick, and the ball struck the bar.
City struggled to create anything, Antoine Semenyo and Jeremy Doku kept reasonably muzzled and Phil Foden anonymous in the middle. What had looked very likely all game finally arrived after the hour, as Maguire headed away a City free kick and United went on the counter. Fernandes, who is special in these moments, put Mbeumo through on goal and the Cameroon international firmly dispatched it into the far corner.
Even here, at this moment, it didn’t look like City had it in them to equalise, much of the aura of yesteryear stripped away as the disciplined home side kept the game under their spell. Things went from bad to worse for the visitors when Dorgu outmuscled Rico Lewis at the far post and forced in United’s second, following Cunha’s cross.
Amad hit the post towards the end as United ran riot and Mason Mount came and scored with his first touch. The goal was disallowed but it hardly mattered. It was job done for Carrick.
