YOU WILL struggle to find 45 minutes of football more aesthetically pleasing than Man City’s first-half demolition of neighbours United at the Etihad Stadium last Sunday.
Even neutrals will have struggled not to be dazzled by the astonishing feats of skill on display.
There were numerous stunning highlights.
The way Phil Foden adjusts his feet to finish sublimely for the opening goal.
How Erling Haaland rises effortlessly above the United defenders to score the second.
Kevin De Bruyne’s majestic pass and Haaland’s incredible athleticism made the finish look easy for 3-0.
And the Norwegian’s exceptional, perfectly weighted pass to complete a near-perfect first-half from the hosts.
Hat-trick heroes Haaland and Foden were justifiably given the joint man-of-the-match award afterwards, but De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva were both similarly awe-inspiring, while Jack Grealish and Ilkay Gundogan also produced extremely accomplished displays.
At times, it felt like City were playing a lower-league team, such was the ease with which they played through a hapless United outfit, and the game felt like a metaphor for wider patterns emerging in football.
Granted, it is far from the first time the Red Devils have been thrashed by their local rivals.
Even going back to 2011, the hosts were beaten 6-1 at Old Trafford. But there was a freakish element to that game. United played most of the second half with 10 men after Jonny Evans’ 47th-minute sending-off and also conceded three of their goals in stoppage time.
On the other hand, if anything, Erik ten Hag’s side were flattered by the 6-3 scoreline last weekend and took advantage of the game being dead late on as well as the fact that many of City’s best players had been substituted.
There were also fairly comprehensive 2-0 and 4-1 wins for City in the same fixture last season, but the gap between the teams has arguably never felt more conspicuous than it did last Sunday.
It feels part of a wider trend too, as City increasingly begin to dominate the English game. The club have won four of the last five Premier League titles and appear well set to soon make it five from six, even if they trail leaders Arsenal by a point as it stands.
Pep Guardiola’s men are not quite as dominant as PSG in France (8 title wins in the last 10 seasons) or Bayern Munich (10 consecutive title wins), but City’s rivals are increasingly struggling to compete.
And following the summer acquisition of Haaland for €60 million, the 22-year-old striker with twice as many goals as any other player in the Premier League right now having scored 14 from eight matches (Tottenham’s Harry Kane is his nearest challenger with seven from eight), the gap is only likely to widen in the coming years.
Their players on the pitch at the weekend were simply far more talented than United’s, even if the latter’s poor work ethic and lack of organisation also exacerbated the difference in standard. It is simply impossible to imagine any other current Premier League team looking so resounding in victory as the reigning champions are on a regular basis right now — they have scored at least three goals in eight out of 11 fixtures since the start of the campaign.
Moreover, their football structure behind the scenes is the envy of most teams in world football, with the invaluable likes of CEO Ferran Soriano and Director of Football Txiki Begiristain backing up Guardiola — perhaps the greatest coach of the modern era.
This is perhaps the biggest difference compared to the United. The two clubs have spent in a similarly excessive manner on players in recent years, but there is an efficiency and real sense of stability about City off the field, while United’s dealings in that regard have been chaotic at best, as illustrated by the numerous changes made behind the scenes at Old Trafford in recent times.
And that essentially explains why one of the few clubs capable of competing financially with City have looked miles off them for years now.
United are serial underachievers when you consider their ample resources, while Liverpool — who cannot match City’s immense wealth — have overachieved under Jurgen Klopp to ensure they haven’t run away with the title in consecutive seasons.
Reading Matt Dickinson’s excellent and self-explanatory recent book ’1999: Manchester United, the Treble and All That’ about a side widely considered as one of the greatest to grace the English game, it is tempting to draw parallels with the City team of today.
As good as the Red Devils were back then, on one level they are nowhere near as dominant as their neighbours are now.
79 points was enough to see them crowned champions in 1999 — that tally would have only secured third place in the Premier League last season, 13 points off Liverpool in second.
Games were consequently far less predictable back then — that United side dropped points on 16 occasions in the top flight, compared to nine for City last year.
United scraped through their Champions League group, two points ahead of Barcelona and one behind Bayern Munich.
By contrast, Man City have won all three of their Champions League matches so far this season, scoring 11 and conceding once.
The Etihad outfit have reached the knockout stages in the last nine consecutive seasons, and their dominance epitomises why some football fans find the early parts of Europe’s premier club competition almost unwatchable. Barring a dramatic implosion from one of the bigger clubs, it is usually easy to predict which 16 teams will be still alive after Christmas.
It’s one of the many adverse effects of having state-owned football clubs with limitless resources and a financial disparity so strong that the vast majority have little chance when coming up against a select few elite clubs.
Plans for an official European Super League were of course quashed back in April 2021 but in a way, the ESL already exists. Every year across the big five European leagues, it feels as if there are fewer games where there is something truly at stake or there is significant doubt over the eventual outcome.
Even the Manchester derby, traditionally renowned as one of the most high-profile fixtures in world football featuring two of the biggest clubs in the game, can no longer be regularly relied upon to be a competitive, closely contested affair.
Upcoming Premier League fixtures (all games 3pm kick-off unless stated otherwise):
Saturday
Bournemouth v Leicester City
Chelsea v Wolves
Man City v Southampton
Newcastle v Brentford
Brighton v Tottenham (17.30)
Sunday
Crystal Palace v Leeds (14.00)
West Ham v Fulham (14.00)
Arsenal v Liverpool (16.30)
Everton v Man United (19.00)
Monday
Nottingham Forest v Aston Villa (20.00)
