This was far from City at their best and yet they eased past a hapless United to destroy any optimism about the future
**_Man City 3-0 Man Utd_** _(Foden 18′, Haaland 53′, 68′)_
This was supposed to be a different Manchester United, an xG powerhouse poised to blow the bloody doors off. Well, the doors came off all right, their doors and in ways with which we are all too familiar.
Ruben Amorim is once again left to process a performance that failed to yield a goal at the profitable end of the pitch. Manchester City, far from their best, did not have to work that hard, two goals a gift of United’s brittle centre, the third an error punished by the Premier League’s most lethal predator.
Amorim can point all he likes to the greater share of possession United enjoyed, which is a function of City’s own issues as Pep Guardiola negotiates this period of renewal. We heard after the opening day defeat to Arsenal how, in Amorim’s view, that display was not a repeat of last season’s failings but a sign of a new order emerging.
Yet apart from one stinging effort from Bryan Mbeumo, the saving of which demonstrated the clear value of Gianluigi Donnarumma to this City team even though the ball at his feet is no friend of his, United could not puncture City’s far from convincing rearguard.
You would hope Amorim responds decisively to this result by accepting the evidence provided by Kobbie Mainoo in a second half cameo that bristled with old United hauteur. His willingness to take the ball and push forward with purpose did at least hint at something. To ignore it could make a reality the chants of a gleeful City support, “you’re getting sacked in the morning”.
The opening quarter gave us a flash of Erling Haaland and a hint of Benjamin Sesko, forcing a diving save from Donnarumma. Thereafter the tall men gave way to the supremacy of the small man, Phil Foden converting with his head a cross from the eel-like Jeremy Doku.
It was City’s effectiveness in tight spaces that forced the breakthrough, particularly Foden, who seemed to be driven by a raw, new energy following last season’s disappointments. Foden tore at United’s disjointed midfield as if this were his last match, finding the angles and the passes to break open the game.
However this is not the City to which we have become accustomed. The team is in a period of steep evolution since Foden was last at his best, the departed Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan, the slowly returning Rodri and the diminished Bernardo Silva leaving City in an unfamiliar state of flux.
The domination enjoyed in this fixture in the past was thus not in evidence here, the goal failing to detonate the old swagger. Indeed the first half was an attritional broth of coughed-up possession, City playing United largely at their own flawed game.
There was, however, comfort to be had in the assured performance of [Donnarumma](https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/gianluigi-donnarumma-transfer-man-city-flaws-man-utd-3915739?ico=in-line_link), who policed his goal with the authority you would expect of a sentry almost two metres tall, catching, punching and blocking United’s ragged incursions into his space.
Of United’s own nearly two-metre man, or should that be two-metre nearly man, Sesko, there was too little seen on his first Premier League start. He appears to have all the attributes, height, speed and touch but has absorbed all the uncertainties killing Amorim’s construct.
United have no obvious mechanism for controlling games. The inert Manuel Ugarte provides neither solidity nor impetus.
Deploying [Bruno Fernandes](https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/man-utd-ruben-amorim-bruno-fernandes-3877135?ico=in-line_link) deep is a compensatory move that hampers the defensive effort and compromised the attack. Fernandes was nowhere near Foden for City’s first and a passenger when Haaland doubled the lead. At least Mainoo offered hope, but by then the match was irretrievable.