Manchester United v Manchester City preview: Rivals set for key clash
Manchester United will look to leapfrog Manchester City in the table with victory in a massive Super Sunday derby clash.
Louis van Gaal's men sit two points behind City heading into the weekend's fixtures, winning four of their past five Premier League outings.
Anthony Martial rescued a point for United at CSKA Moscow in the Champions League in midweek, while City made it four wins in a row in all competitions as they saw off Sevilla on Wednesday night.
United outclassed City in the meeting at Old Trafford in April, running out 4-2 winners to end their run of four successive derby defeats.
Team news
Luke Shaw (leg) and Paddy McNair (liver) are the only injury concerns for Van Gaal. United winger Ashley Young (thigh) is back in training but is not ready to play on Sunday after missing three weeks.
For City, David Silva (ankle) and Sergio Aguero (hamstring) lead their lengthy injury list. Fabian Delph (hamstring), Gael Clichy (ankle) and Samir Nasri (hamstring) are also out, while Pellegrini hinted in his press conference that he could use Kevin de Bruyne as a striker at Old Trafford.
Vincent Kompany is in contention, but Pellegrini went on to say that "[Eliaquim] Mangala and [Nicolas] Otamendi are doing well".
Opta stats
Wayne Rooney has scored 11 goals in Manchester derbies (all competitions) - more than any other player - and no player has scored as many Premier League goals as he has by the age of 30 (187).
Manchester City have won six of their past eight Manchester derbies in league competition (lost two), having won only six of the previous 42.
United have won 17 of their 23 Premier League home games under Louis van Gaal (74 per cent), conceding just 16 goals (drawn three, lost three).
scored (4.1 goals per game). Manchester City have had the most shots on target (74) and have allowed their opponents the fewest (24) in the opening nine matchdays of 2015-16.
Merson's prediction
I don't see United losing this one. City are just too open for my liking and tactically naive at times. They just go all-out attack, which is fine against lesser teams, but United will be solid and could then pick them off. United had the biggest result last weekend, winning at Everton in the manner they did after their thumping at Arsenal.
If United win this, they are big players in the Premier League title race. Kevin de Bruyne is different gravy and United will have to keep him quiet - he has been outstanding. Other than him, I don't see how City hurt can United without Sergio Aguero and David Silva and I think United will just win the game, although a draw wouldn't surprise me.
TEAM NEWS
Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal has no fresh injury concerns ahead of Sunday's derby.
Ashley Young is not ready to return from a calf problem and joins Paddy McNair and Luke Shaw on the sidelines.
Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini would not confirm whether Vincent Kompany will be recalled for his first club start in six weeks.
City remain without injured quintet David Silva, Sergio Aguero, Gael Clichy, Samir Nasri and Fabian Delph.
MOTD COMMENTATOR'S NOTES
Guy Mowbray: "Things sure ain't what they used to be.
"For worse - look at the likely line-ups. Not a local lad to be seen.
"For better - look at the likely line-ups. This is a 'super-derby' that the whole world can engage with.
"I'm tempted to make City favourites - but with Aguero and Silva out it draws them back a bit, even with De Bruyne doing the business his fee demanded.
"I'm tempted to make United favourites - but you don't know what you'll get from them game to game.
"The match comes on the same weekend that City scored six at Old Trafford in 2011.
"I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the same number of goals this time. I would if they weren't more equally shared."
Twitter: @Guymowbray
WHAT THE MANAGERS SAY
Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal: "We have one day less [than Manchester City] to prepare so it's more difficult. When you look at the facts they are first [in the league] so they are favourites, I think.
"I think for the fans it's very emotional. I live in a little village and there it is also the talk of the town. I think in Manchester it is more.
"The champion is only in May. It's a big step when we win, that's true, but you also have to continue."
Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini: "I always say that it's a match of six points because it is a match against a team that is behind you, but it is not a game that will decide the title this year.
"At this moment we are in a good moment, we are top of the league, but that doesn't mean that we are going to do a better season than the last one.
"It's important not to make the same mistakes and try to improve every game."
LAWRO'S PREDICTION
With no Sergio Aguero and no David Silva, I am not really tempted to tip Manchester City to win.
Minus his main men, I think City boss Manuel Pellegrini would take a draw if you offered it to him before kick-off.
- Think you can do better than Lawro? Predict the score for this match and the rest of this round's Premier League fixtures in ourPredictor game.
MATCH FACTS
Head-to-head
- Manchester City have won six of the last eight Manchester derbies in the league, which is as many wins as they managed in the previous 42 meetings.
- City are looking for their 50th competitive win in the Manchester derby (W49, D50, L69).
Manchester United
- United have won 17 of their 23 Premier League home games under Louis van Gaal (D3, L3) - only neighbours City have fared better over the same period, with 18 wins.
- They could remain unbeaten in their opening five home matches of a league season for the first time since 2010.
- Wayne Rooney, who turns 30 the day before this match, has scored 187 Premier League goals, level with Andrew Cole and second only to Alan Shearer's 260.
- Rooney now has 236 goals for United in all competitions, one behind Denis Law and 13 below club record scorer Bobby Charlton.
- He has scored an unrivalled 11 goals in Manchester derbies in all competitions.
Manchester City
- They are the division's top scorers this season with 24 goals - 11 of them coming in the last two matches.
- Manuel Pellegrini's side have scored in each of their last 18 league games.
- City registered the most shots on target (74) and allowed their opponents the fewest (24) in the opening nine rounds of fixtures.
- They have lost half of their last 10 away games in the league, winning the other five.
- Kevin De Bruyne has scored five goals and provided four assists in his last seven games in all competitions for the club. He has 23 assists in 41 league appearances since the start of last season, more than any other player in the major European Leagues.
United need to beat City – Phil Jones
Phil Jones says Manchester United must beat local rivals Manchester City and take the tree points that will please their fans.
Victory over rivals Manchester City in their Premier League clash on Sunday is a must for Manchester United, says Phil Jones.
United slipped to fourth in the Premier League due to West Ham's victory over Chelsea on Saturday, while City were displaced at the summit following Arsenal's win against Everton.
Louis van Gaal's men could move above their city rivals with a win at Old Trafford, and Jones did not downplay the magnitude of the occasion.
"It's a big game in all respects. We need to win and play well and play like we did against Everton because against them we were superb all over the pitch," he told MUTV.
"I'm sure that if we play like that we’ll have no problems.
"There will be a lot of people going into work on Monday hoping to have the bragging rights. Hopefully we can make sure they go in on Monday with a smile on their face."
City will be unable to call upon influential duo Sergio Aguero and David Silva due to injuries, but Jones is in no doubt that they have enough quality to make up for their absences.
He highlighted Kevin De Bruyne as one player in particular that United will need to watch.
"They're great players, but City can also bring great players into the squad as well," Jones added.
"It can be a bonus [if they don't play] but they've got terrific players throughout, which is why they're up there and have been for the last two years.
"We need to focus on what we're about and what we're going to do and start the game well.
"De Bruyne has done well and scored a late goal the other night against Sevilla [in the Champions League].
"We need to be wary of him but also other players. Like I said, though, we're at home and it's about us; we have to take the game to them and impress."
Preview: Man United vs Man City
Billed as
Noisy neighbours look to claw their way towards table-topping rivals after heavy investment.
The lowdown
A year-and-a-bit in, it seems fair to conclude that Louis van Gaal’s Manchester United project is an odd one. Odd because, given Van Gaal’s centrality to Dutch football culture and Dutch football culture’s obsession with aesthetic perfection, his United team have been a pretty dull spectacle at the best of times.
This dreariness peaked (or more accurately, troughed) when Liverpool came to town to play out a game that was truly one of the most eye-clawingly tedious in recent memory. But that was merely the most extreme example of a regular trend: even last week’s win at Everton – on paper a comprehensive crushing of one of the league’s tougher opponents – was a strangely muted affair.
At the end of it all, though, perhaps the most telling fact is that those games yielded a comfortable six points for United, and that’s essentially the Van Gaal reign in a microcosm: you may not stay awake to witness it, but the club are slowly, unfussily dragging themselves back towards that perch. It’s just that, with United’s tradition of pulse-quickening football and Van Gaal’s association with the same – not to mention the small matter of the quarter of a billion pounds spent since his arrival – you’d expect the whole enterprise to be a tad more easy on the eye.
The modern incarnation of Manchester City, meanwhile, are almost the complete inverse. While results have often wavered, they rarely stand accused of denying the neutrals their popcorn.
From their head-to-head battles with Spurs for Champions League qualification in the early years of Sheikh Mansour’s ownership, to Sergio Aguero’s canonical winner against QPR and 2014's 102-goal title win (and even their inexplicable nosedive last season), City have made a habit of generating the sort of high drama and unpredictability upon which the Premier League so loves to market itself.
This season, seven wins from nine have seen Pellegrini’s men breeze into an early lead. True to form, though, they’ve done it with no little generosity to the neutrals: both in being entertaining in victory (averaging just under three goals a game so far) but also by using a pair of jack-in-the-box defeats to West Ham and Spurs to remind the world that Cityitis still has no known cure.
Add to this the presence of the division’s three most exuberant young attackers in the form of their lives, and the fact that either side could top the table come Sunday night, and we have a Manchester derby that, if drama matches intrigue, could be a stormer.
Team news
Luke Shaw and Ashley Young are United's only unavailable senior players. Chris Smalling and Phil Jones are likely to continue their fruitful partnership at centre-back, and any change to the Schneiderlin-Schweinsteiger-Herrera midfield which ran so smoothly against Everton would be a surprise.
For City, skipper Vincent Kompany – if allowed back off the naughty step – may return after seven games out but the derby will be without its two best players in Sergio Aguero and, barring a shock recovery, David Silva. Samir Nasri is also a doubt, so Yaya Toure may find himself pushed upfield if the belt-and-braces double-pivot of Fernando and Fernandinho is employed.
Key battle: De Bruyne vs Schweinderlin
With the injured Silva having to relinquish the playmaker’s baton last week, De Bruyne grabbed it keenly and continued at breakneck speed, playing the puppeteer masterfully against Bournemouth before marching into centre stage with supreme timing to steal a midweek win against Sevilla.
A fortnight previously, United’s midfield screen had been studiously dismantled by an Arsenal side who repeatedly lured Bastian Schweinsteiger upfield before unleashing their cohort of creators to run riot in the space vacated. Alexis Sanchez was the chief beneficiary. United seemed to have addressed this against Everton but their capacity to nullify De Bruyne will be a truer test of their resilience.
Indeed, there’s something of Sanchez in the Belgian: another muscular, direct inside-left equally adept rocketing off a 30-yarder as threading a defence-piercing through-ball. De Bruyne is well-equipped to exploit any space around United's defence. Whether he can find it in the manner of his Chilean counterpart could be crucial to Sunday’s outcome.
The managers
"A mistake in judgment isn't fatal, but too much anxiety about judgment is." Pauline Kael was talking about film criticism but she could equally have been referring to the key difference between the Moyes and Van Gaal regimes at Old Trafford. The Dutchman’s methods may not have always appeared perfect, but he’s never applied them with anything less than full conviction.
Next week, when we win against Manchester City, then we can say 'OK, now we think maybe about title aspirations’
- Louis van Gaal
While Moyes always seemed haunted by his latest loss, the Dutchman reassures by constantly effusing the importance of process – though he does so to such an extent that things like scoreline and points tally often seem like an afterthought.
Recent noises suggest that fanaticism may be lessening, though, and Van Gaal reckons victory on Sunday would lay the parameters for their season. “We have to be more consistent,” was his response to the win at Goodison. “So next week, when we win against Manchester City, then we can say 'OK, now we think maybe about title aspirations’.”
Across town, with the skinny-tied spectre of a certain Catalan supercoach refusing to exorcise itself from the back pages, Pellegrini is under some pressure to inhabit that narrow Venn diagram crossover of results man and aesthete’s choice – and so far this season he's largely succeeded. His side have outscored their rivals by nearly half again, registering 24 goals to United’s 15, while conceding equally few (eight apiece).
Ultimately, though, a home win on Sunday would put Van Gaal’s workmen above his showmen. Pellegrini will want to prevent this – if only to prevent the whisperings that would inevitably follow.
Facts and figures
- Manchester City are looking for their 50th competitive win in the Manchester derby (W49 D50 L69).
- Wayne Rooney has scored 11 goals in Manchester derbies (all competitions); more than any other player in this fixture.
- Kevin De Bruyne has 23 assists in 41 league appearances since the start of last season; 3 more than any other player in the top five European Leagues.
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