Manchester City brush off financial allegations with dominant derby win over Manchester United
If last week’s Football Leaks reports suggested that Manchester City’s success owes as much to creativity in their accounting as in their attacking play, then the visit of Manchester United to the Etihad Stadium on Sunday could hardly have been better timed.
Because for all of City’s alleged gaming of Financial Fair Play rules by artificially inflating the value of sponsorship deals with other arms of Abu Dhabi’s investment portfolio, they remain poorer neighbours to the commercial behemoth that is United.
And yet, as City’s stylish and utterly dominant 3-1 victory illustrated, they have invested their riches far more effectively, creating a team under a visionary coach in Pep Guardiola that is light years ahead of their local rivals and proving that there is more to winning than amassing the most cash.
As the scoreline hinted, the reigning Premier League champions outclassed United – but in a manner and extent that went far beyond the result.
City dragged United this way and that at will, and while the visitors remained in the contest until Ilkay Gundogan scored the hosts’ third goal in the 86th minute, they were always going to need a set-piece or moment of fortune to hand them a reprieve.
United relied on containment tactics in the hope of hanging in there and repeating the sucker-punch that floored Juventus in Turin on Wednesday. City banked on taking the game to their opponents and being good enough to beat them. They were – and then some.
For the opening quarter of an hour, a chastening afternoon looked in prospect for United, who quickly found themselves camped in their own half with 11 men behind the ball.
So dominant and purposeful were City that they had 87 per cent of possession in the first 10 minutes and there was a sense of inevitability about David Silva’s goal in the 12th minute.
Raheem Sterling swung a cross from left to right, Bernardo Silva scurried onto it and forced it back across the goalmouth, where the Spanish playmaker beat David de Gea from close range. It felt like the floodgates being burst open.
Sometimes City’s own worst enemy appears to be themselves, however. So easy is it to cut through other teams that they can cruise in spells, confident that more chances will come.
That was the case for much of the rest of the first half and brought to mind last season’s fixture, in which United came from 2-0 down at half-time to win 3-2 and delay City’s coronation.
Sergio Aguero allayed anxiety by rifling a rising drive past De Gea just after the interval, but United got a foothold 10 minutes later when Romelu Lukaku won a penalty with his first touch – City keeper Ederson rashly diving at the substitute’s feet – and Anthony Martial scored from the spot.
It proved a false dawn and Gundogan’s goal – a calm, close-range finish from Bernardo Silva’s cross that completed a 44-pass move – was the perfect distillation of City’s obvious superiority.
Recent discussion around City – the team, as opposed to the club, at any rate – has centred on whether they may be even better than the side that ripped up the record books on their way to the trophy last season.
The top-line numbers indicate that may be premature: they have two points fewer than at this stage last year, their goal difference is inferior by two and their lead at the top of the table is six points smaller, although that owes as much to Liverpool’s improvement.
What is inarguable is that, with their £500m annual revenue – inflated or not – falling some way short of United’s £590m, City’s advantage over their Manchester rivals has never looked greater.