A dejected Erling Haaland of Manchester City during the Premier League match between Manchester City and Manchester United
Manchester City conceded twice in the closing stages to lose the derby to Manchester United
How?
That's the question for Manchester City again after this latest humiliation. How do you turn victory into defeat again and how have you managed to lose to probably the worst United team to visit the Etihad in the Premier League era?
It's now eight defeats in 11 for the team that has won the last four Premier League titles, an abysmal run of form that shows no sign of ending. Every time they seem to hit rock bottom, they find a way to fall again and conceding two goals in the last three minutes to this United team may well be the most painful one yet.
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City can't say when they will next win a game and can't even say with confidence that they will finish above their neighbours for the 13th straight season when they continue to find new ways to lose football matches. A comfortable lead heading into injury time changed in the blink of an eye thanks to more inexplicable individual errors and a loss of team confidence.
City's confidence is so low that even after Josko Gvardiol's 36th-minute header it was the Reds who drew more confidence, enjoying their best spell of the game. Thankfully for City, United's best was, until the 90th minute, bang average.
Ruben Amorim has not had the bounce a new manager might expect and the number of times the visitors were stupidly caught offside and that's before discussing the eyebrow-raising team selections. The absence of Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho from the squad - two of the players more likely to hurt City in the way that all teams have been hurting them recently - neatly made the point that however bad things are at the Etihad in these unprecedented times United continue to be more of a circus.
It was City who looked the clowns at full-time on Sunday though with Pep Guardiola shell-shocked in his seat at this latest collapse. Every time they take one step forward, they manage to fall at least the same back.
This should have been better for City in the sense that it was the first time this season Guardiola has been able to field both Kevin De Bruyne and Phil Foden in the same starting line-up. The manager has hinted at the need for January recruits but first and foremost asked for his current players back to make them competitive again, so here was a welcome sight.
The reality though is that it will take time. Foden looked short of full fitness in his first start since Anfield a fortnight ago, and De Bruyne managed to shank not one but two promising balls out of play in the space of a couple of first-half minutes.
The nature of their solitary goal said a lot about the game, a botched short-corner routine that deflected perfectly for Gvardiol to head in as United's wretched record at defending set-pieces got worse. Gvardiol's header making him City's second-highest scorer this season on four is a grim reflection of the lack of attacking quality elsewhere.
For the first time in a while, there appeared to be no comical defending from City (aside from Kyle Walker's head loss after being brushed by Rasmus Hojlund). Gvardiol and Ruben Dias were brilliantly composed throughout, with the latter relishing the chance to make his battle with Hojlund physical; United were caught offside an enormous amount of times and when they finally did get through Bruno Fernandes chipped it wide of Ederson's goal.
But then came the moments of madness from Nunes. As stunned teammates came to terms with what had just happened, Dias sensed City needed something more and urged the crowd behind the North Stand to put Fernandes off; it didn't work.
As the home team regrouped, Dias orchestrated Haaland to head forward so that City could retake the initiative. That didn't work either and they went backwards into their own goal to pick the ball out of the net again.
Last time things were this bad in Manchester there was a pandemic on. At least fans were allowed in for this fixture, but it did feel like both teams were doing their best to socially distance from each other in the lowest quality derby since that grim 0-0 at Old Trafford in December 2020.
City went on to win the league that year and United came second, so there is plenty of time for improvements. Dropped points at home from Liverpool and Arsenal this weekend support the theory that there is no outstanding team his season, meaning it doesn't take as much to stay in the title race.
While Guardiola's side aren't strong enough to hold on against this United team though, there are too many question marks every match for them to be anywhere near the level needed to think about titles.