The game we have all been waiting for certainly lived up to it’s expectations, keeping us at the edge of our seats until the final whistle. For the first twenty-five minutes, Manchester City, looked ambitious enough to compete, causing Manchester United a few problems.
Manchester City’s David Silva was impressive, but his miss in the opening minutes may put a shadow on his overall performance. The Spanish midfielder, was in my opinion City’s best player today – most of City’s chances were played through the 25-year old.
Sir Alex Ferguson yesterday confirmed Rio Ferdinand wouldn’t feature in the Manchester derby and that Chris Smalling would get the start, and the England u21 succeed to impress putting in another outstanding performance.
In the 41st minute, Manchester United opened the scoring, coming from the left, Ryan Giggs, played a hard pass to Nani, who did exceptionally well to get the ball away from Manchester City’s full back, Pablo Zabaleta, and with his second touch he put the ball past Joe Hart, into the right of goal – United were finally 1-0 up.
The sound of the half-time whistle, delighted the bitters because their confidence dropped after going a goal down. Sky Sports presenter, Geoff Shreeves, at the start of the second half told Sky’s viewers, Roberto Mancini spent 10+ minutes outside City’s dressing room discussing how they’d come back against Manchester United, with his coaching staff – says a lot about the Italians managerial experience!
The first substitution was made on the 52nd minute by Manchester City, who brought on Shaun Wright-Phillips replacing a pretty average Aleksandar Kolarov. City’s equalizer came 13 minutes later, when Shaun Wright-Phillips played a ball along the ground from the right, into the penalty area to Dzeko, who took a strike that deflected off Silva, going to the left of Van Der Sar’s goal.
Immediately Manchester United were put on the back-foot, Paul Scholes showed his frustration by getting booked for a foul on Micah Richards, meanwhile the Reds were getting ready to introduce Berbatov in hope of getting another late winner that would take them a huge step forward in winning the club’s 19th league title.
Manchester United’s never die attitude came out yet again, when Wayne Rooney scored an astonishing goal. Nani gave an immense cross from the right and Rooney converted it with an incredible overhead volley, which went into the top corner of City’s net – Joe Hart didn’t move a muscle and just watched the ball float in mid-air.
Thankfully the game ended 2-1, and City are now eight off the pace, saying goodbye to their title hopes.
