It was not a classic between Manchester United and Man City but Bruno Fernandes tried his best and Pep Guardiola kept things interesting after the game.
1) It was a fitting end to a fundamentally lamentable game. As Manchester United passed the ball impotently and uncertainly around the edge of the area in aimless search of a winner, it was deemed by referee John Brooks that enough was enough.
His final whistle brought jeers of derision from the home fans and arms thrown in frustration by those in red, but Old Trafford should have been collectively and eternally grateful, erupting in celebration at that quite merciful shrill.
Maybe Patrick Dorgu would have suddenly found a teammate with a cross, or Alejandro Garnacho might have inexplicably made the right final decision, or Bruno Fernandes could have finally established a way to play the killer final pass to himself. But nothing Manchester United or Manchester City produced in the preceding 94 minutes suggested they deserved the chance to find out for any longer than was absolutely necessary. There cannot have been a more expensive game so bereft of quality in Premier League history.
2) Manchester United should be marginally less ashamed at their ludicrously extravagant waste based on this match alone. They created the better opportunities, generally avoided being exposed at the other end and at least resembled complete strangers who were willing to acknowledge each other’s existence.
One particular move they constructed was of genuine skill, with moving parts and cohesion and rhythm and a clear train of thought. Harry Maguire and Leny Yoro traded the ball before the Frenchman played it through the lines to Manuel Ugarte. He found Dorgu hugging the touchline on the left, and his crisp pass into Rasmus Hojlund was flicked around the corner for Garnacho to run onto into the gaping space where the concept of Manchester City’s defence should have been.
It was smooth and slick, resulting in a free-kick on the edge of the area and a yellow card for Ruben Dias when Garnacho was brought down. It was also the best moment of the match and it came 40 seconds in.
3) Garnacho remains an intensely infuriating player. That was one of at least two attacks which he led when Manchester United outnumbered City, and both times he delayed the pass so long as to essentially nullify the threat himself.
The Argentinean’s skillset makes him both easy and difficult to defend against. Garnacho’s pace, movement and determination gives his team a permanent outlet but if the opponent doesn’t commit and gives him time and space to make a decision, his ability to choose the wrong one is unerring.
There can be little doubt that Garnacho is trying to do what is asked of him, nor that Ruben Amorim will be impressed with his endeavour in helping out defensively. But Manchester United need to ask whether their foundational rebuild can sustain resources being redirected into so many structurally incompatible side projects at the same time, and in particular down the same flank.
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4) Perhaps the biggest problem in terms of Garnacho’s long-term Manchester United aspirations is his conspicuous lack of connection with Dorgu. If something ever has to give there it seems unlikely it will be one of the first substantial signings made by the overhauled recruitment department.
That rarity of Garnacho noticing and actually using a Dorgu overlap generated one of the game’s better chances for Joshua Zirkzee late in the second half but generally it was another disjointed performance down a side Manchester United theoretically rate at around £90m. Whatever the opposite of a telepathic bond is, they have quickly established it.
5) The early narrative crux of this game was provided in midweek by Kevin De Bruyne’s exit announcement. Pep Guardiola restoring him to the starting line-up for the first time in five Premier League matches felt like the sort of emotionally-driven decision which has undermined so much of their season.
This was pitched as his last great hurrah but the reality was stark and his imperfections as a player in 2025 were exposed. De Bruyne could not operate on the same quick wavelength as Omar Marmoush and his two shots summed up a raging against the dying of the light: both came after moments of trademark excellence, cutting inside from the right to create space outside the area, but then the scuffed efforts into Andre Onana’s welcoming arms followed.
While the intelligence and ingenuity of 2017 is still evident, the 33-year-old’s body cannot quite keep up. De Bruyne can identify the positions and passes but the execution at this level is lacking. This was the first time he failed to create a single chance in a Premier League game having played the full 90 minutes since April 2018, and only some of that can be explained by the absence of an Erling Haaland or Sergio Aguero.
6) It was generally quite sad to watch De Bruyne come to terms with his footballing mortality, but Peter Drury remarking upon how the Belgian was “lengthening his stride like a teenager” just before he tried and summarily failed to play the sort of pass which made him a Manchester City icon was unintentionally quite funny.
7) De Bruyne was heavily involved in a calamitous sequence which should probably result in both clubs being fined. About ten minutes in, a loose Maguire pass triggered a chain of events in which he, Yoro, Ugarte, Phil Foden and Bernardo Silva all lost the ball in quick and unfathomable succession.
It was eventually squeezed out to Diogo Dalot who did well under pressure from De Bruyne to find Casemiro in the middle, free of the Manchester City vague press. This was one of the Brazilian’s better games by quite some margin, and he still managed to cram in an impeccable 40-yard ball straight out of play for a throw-in, splitting Dorgu and Garnacho perfectly. Obviously neither knew whether the other was going for it.
It doesn’t bear thinking about the money spent on the players involved in that particular deeply regrettable scene.
8) Foden was clattered by a rampaging Casemiro towards the start of that exchange and his needing treatment might well have contributed to his substitution in the 58th minute; an outwardly baffling continued ineffectiveness might have been another factor.
There were sparks in his couple of shots but nothing to quell the growing concerns of his teammates, and far more telling was the effort he couldn’t get away when the ball wriggled into his path in the Manchester United penalty area. The touch was sub-optimal and Noussair Mazraoui recovered to help win a goal kick when Foden would ordinarily have expected to score.
Without knowing the minutiae of the situation it does seem like Foden might simply need some time away, because this overexposure cannot be serving him well in a physical or mental sense.
9) Micah Richards calling Foden “one of the best youngsters in world football” before the game was phenomenal work; he is a father of three who turns 25 next month, towards the end of his eighth season as a Premier League player.
It can only be hoped that Foden is being given the right support but his Lingardification in the wider punditocracy is annoying if not outright unhelpful.
10) Fernandes was a comfortable man of the match, displaying his wide range and variety of passes. One minute he was chesting a ball first time around a defender before completing a one-two to launch an attack; the next he was spraying a glorious switch to an unforgivably offside Dorgu.
The wing-back was understandably given a couple of barrels for that indiscretion, while Fernandes reserved some ire for Garnacho moments earlier for his delayed and poor pass on one of those breaks.
At one stage the Portuguese scrapped through about three tackles from different Manchester City players before eventually offloading the ball, stopping to berate referee Brooks for a few seconds, then returning to action to start an attack through Garnacho down the right. He can be exasperating to watch even as a neutral but Manchester United are unimaginably fortunate that he seems intent on wasting his remaining elite years on dragging them back towards relevancy.
11) Gary Neville apologised for his co-commentary, calling himself “boring” and “drab” because of what he feels is the creeping “robotic nature” and “micro-management” of Premier League teams, in a post-match missive seemingly designed to create content after the vacuum left by this game.
But his worst moment was an egregious call of “handball” even before Dorgu’s low cross struck Dias as the Manchester City defender slipped to the ground. It was a really weird moment very probably born of just wanting something to happen, but it did inevitably fuel those laborious claims of bias he has tried meticulously to avoid for years.
12) If Dias managed to compute the situation quickly enough to deliberately pull his arm back and avoid conceding a penalty then it was phenomenal defensive work.
13) Neville might well have a point on the automation of modern coaching and the overemphasis on positions and systems, which in turn inhibits freedom or risk-taking.
Nico O’Reilly fared pretty well but the standardisation of blooding academy products at left-back is curious, while in the first half there was confusion between Casemiro and Fernandes at one point when a loose ball trickled in between their respective midfield areas and both waited for the other to take responsibility, only for Bernardo Silva to snatch in and launch a counter.
But really Amorim pretty much nailed it: these are two teams with a deficiency in confidence as much as quality and it is only natural that a coach deems it necessary to fall back on what they know when confronted with such fragility. If this isn’t the worst, least interesting Manchester derby for years to come then something has gone horribly wrong.
14) Guardiola starting with a midfield of De Bruyne ahead of Silva, Mateo Kovacic and Ilkay Gundogan did little to dispel those concerns. With Manchester City still struggling to anchor themselves it was decided that only four 30-somethings – at least two of whom should not play any part in their future beyond this season – could help them rediscover a semblance of identity and, as the Spaniard put it afterwards, “control”.
It meant the entire sacrifice of width and balance, an incredibly stale attack and a first Premier League bench place for Nico Gonzalez, who was joined on the sidelines by Abdukodir Khusanov as Marmoush became the only January signing worth persisting with into April.
Guardiola acknowledged after the game how Manchester United “defend narrow here” and yet he picked a team with no wingers. The fear of what a team 13th in the Premier League table can do on transitions was strange.
15) Then came the parting shot, bizarrely aimed at Matheus Nunes following what was one of his better performances.
“He can become a good right-back with his physicality. I think he’s not a player to play in the middle because he’s not clever enough in the composure. But he has incredible skills and he is learning a lot.”
It is a stunning thing to say publicly about a central midfielder signed for £53m only 18 months ago, not least because a) the question Guardiola was answering was a relative softball about whether he wanted more “offensive aggression” coming from right-back in the future, and b) he used a “lack of class” to criticise Manchester United supporters moments earlier.
Nunes fared relatively well all things considered, and did brilliantly when one wonderful Fernandes pass late in the second half set Garnacho free before the Manchester City man recovered. But that is a full and wholly unnecessary Kalvin Phillips-shaped career-defining profiling which helps neither the manager, the player nor the club.
16) It will be interesting to see how far Amorim’s patience with Hojlund stretches before he embarks on a similarly excoriating role re-evaluation.
The Dane had one touch in the Manchester City penalty area – it ended with him being tackled cleanly by Josko Gvardiol – bringing his total touches in the penalty area this Premier League season to 51. He has now pulled clear of the couple of players on 50, among whom is apparent maybe okay right-back if he applies himself Matheus Nunes.
Guardiola would have sold Hojlund already for such a shameful statistic.
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