Manchester City 0-1 Manchester United

Manchester City 0-1 Manchester United

Carabao Cup Semi-Final

Wednesday 29th January 2020

This wasn’t a Manchester derby which will live particularly long in the memory as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s United were victorious on the night, but not by a large enough margin to overturn their first leg deficit.

Pep Guardiola’s City; slick at moving the ball around, had far superior possession yet were guilty of not taking the openings which they created - nobody more so than Raheem Sterling who had the sort of night where he’d have struggled to finish his dinner, let alone any fine passing moves!

David De Gea thwarted the hosts, and in particular Sergio Aguero, on quite a few occasions with some absolutely top-drawer goalkeeping which deserved huge plaudits, whilst other chances just lacked accuracy altogether. 

City, frustratingly, over-played and over-complicated things much too often for my liking. A quick, decisive pass into a more dangerous area during one of the many times they probed on the edge of the box might well have made a key difference. They only really had themselves to blame for losing the game.

Nemanja Matic got United’s opener just after the half-hour mark in what was their first attacking move of any significance. It came from a set-piece; Fred’s ball into the danger zone only being partially cleared towards the edge of the box from where Matic swept a cute, low drive into the bottom-left corner beyond a full-stretch Claudio Bravo.

In open play, the visitors created next to nothing throughout the 90 minutes with City’s off-ball defensive shape and hard work absolutely thwarting them. However, Solskjaer’s men twice exposed some of City’s vulnerabilities at set-plays. The first was just after half-time when Harry Maguire’s unchallenged header went just inches over the target and then late on when Nicholas Otamendi gave away a stupid free-kick on the edge of the box, which was subsequently blocked by the defensive wall.

Guardiola’s team did have two goals disallowed for offside; both were correct and instantly flagged by the linesman (and obviously checked with VAR) and they just couldn’t get a goal to ease an anxious and edgy atmosphere that had built up as the game ticked slowly towards its conclusion.

Matic’s dismissal for a second yellow card with a quarter-of-an-hour remaining eased some of the anxiousness that had built up, but what could have been a comfortable passage to a cup final date with Aston Villa instead was a laborious and difficult one which required concentration right up to the very end.

Had it not been for the fact that I hadn’t previously attended a Manchester Derby, I’d have actually been watching Aston Villa (of sorts) at the same time instead - as their Under 18s got walloped 4-0 by Doncaster Rovers in the Premier League Cup at the Keepmoat Stadium. 

However, I’d waited patiently for a Manchester Derby to happen in a cup competition for eight years (since, rather oddly in hindsight, I turned down the chance of a ticket to the 3-2 United win in the FA Cup in January 2012) so there was no way I was prepared to miss this game again!

Having seen local derbies and cup shocks galore pretty much everywhere in nearly two decades of watching football, my only other regret is not attending the South Coast derby (Southampton v Portsmouth) that same year. I could have had a ticket, I turned it down, it was a good game - ask David Nugent, and it wrankles with me to this day! 

In comparison to other ‘big’ derbies which I’ve seen, this one felt a bit flat. Whether that’s because I grew up in an era when there was a gigantic gulf between the two teams and now they’re quite even (and the hatred/passion has mellowed over time), or because it was only a cup game, who knows? Surprisingly, it wasn’t even a sell-out - nor was the first leg played infront of a capacity crowd, either. Again, throw the clock back about 15-20 years; pre-Etihad Stadium and when Sir Alex Ferguson was United manager, and that would never have happened as both games would have sold-out many weeks beforehand.

Overall, I’ve now watched 982 competitive first team games in the UK, spanning 17 years, and the chase is on to reach four figures by the end of the season. I don't know what 'Numero 1,000' will be but a visit to one of the play-off finals wouldn't go amiss.