United vs City
Our internet friends are always welcome to share some of their ‘Pre and Post Match’ thoughts with us from now on. If you want to share, get in touch! You can still enjoy our nonsensical, confusing, punctuation buffets below their proper good ones…
Iwan (@IwanLehnert):
Well, that’s the double gone, then. Bugger. Never mind, eh?
And that about covers my post-Chelsea report.
I can remember last year’s derby very clearly. After the loss at Wigan and the Everton game (collective shudder), Sky were billing this game as the biggest in Premier League history. And to be fair to them, it’s not particularly common to get the two title challengers playing so late on in the season, let alone so close on points. I normally try and steer clear of the hyperbole that they dish out, and my word they’ve gotten even more dramatic over the last season or so, but this time it was hard to avoid. This was a chance to prove to them that we were still on top, and we could beat them on their own ground. A chance to stop them in their tracks with three games to go, and practically guarantee the league.
But we bottled it.
We never really fell apart at the Etihad but there wasn’t a single point where we actually got going and attempted to take the game to City. To lose a derby so meekly with so much at stake was a bitter pill to swallow, and it took the title very much out of our hands. Then that thing happened at the end of the season, and we do not speak of it here. Do we?
Fast forward twelve months and things have changed pretty dramatically. I don’t think any of us expected to be top of the league quite like this in April, or at any stage of the season. Sure, the European and now FA Cup exits have stung, but in the league, we’ve been incredibly dominant. So many results where we’ve pinched victory stick out, and so many games have been won with a calculating, suffocating approach that will most likely see us home and dry well before we visit the Hawthorns on the final day of the season.
If we win on Monday, then it won’t signal a shift in power back to Old Trafford in the long term. It won’t render City a rubbish side and destroy them. What it will do is practically guarantee us the league title. Revenge doesn’t really feel like the right term, though. Even if we can’t actually put a hand on the trophy on Monday night, it’s a chance to rub City’s noses in it quite severely, though. Given how low-key United have been since Real knocked us out of Europe, we’re due a strong performance and this is the biggest game we have left before the end of the season. It’s an occasion, and the fact that it’s City alone means we need to rise to it. Obviously, the chance to go 18 points clear helps.
I just hope we turn up. I really do. I look at this current side and think that they’re capable of more than they’re letting on, and with nothing left to play for save for wrapping up the title, this is as good a chance to enjoy ourselves as we’re going to get. Hopefully, Monday will be worth celebrating, but whatever happens, it’s been a season to savour. Worth remembering that, whatever happens.
Brett:
Fergie really, really, really wanted the title back (obviously) and it’s showed with 90% of his team selections this season – no longer was he allowing his ego to dictate the eleven he put out, instead, for the most part, relying on good ol’-fashioned common sense. It was also apparent in the purchase of RVP, which has ultimately propelled us above the rest.
In reality, City, for all their wealth and talent have never really got it right and even in winning the title last season, they were unable to stamp any kind of sustained authority on the league (We all know that the league last season was a draw, they just get to keep the title on a technicality). They have spent a heck of a lot of money adorning their squad with exactly the wrong type of players and only very little on the right kind, that bring a longevity to your aspirations – somewhat indicative of the cliches you’d expect from a team owned as they are. How a team can expect to be taken seriously with only one and a half decent defenders at the club is frightening.
How all the above plays out in this game, I’m not sure. Our bloody-minded attitude can help us see off lesser opposition, but on current form we can expect to be beaten. For all the cliches of remaining focused – especially after the Champions League exit – it must be really hard to maintain a genuine drive toward the title – evident in our embarrassing FA Cup exit. City aren’t exactly pulling up trees, but they do have the greater incentive if they choose to use it.
A return for Rooney, will hopefully create some different shapes in the attacking third and a team without Nani will look so much better than one with.
Surely, the combination of everything makes for shedload of goals. I’ll eat my own head, if either team keep a clean sheet.
Prediction: 3 – 2
Goals: Rio, Rooney, Giggsy.
