Manchester United suffered a 3-0 defeat to Manchester City at the Etihad and under-fire manager Ruben Amorim took responsibility for the performance.
Phil Foden opened the scoring for the Cityzens in the 18th minute with a header, after Jeremy Doku laid it on a plate with his cross after a fine run.
Foden and Doku both performed brilliantly in the Manchester derby, but it was Erling Haaland who stole the headlines in the second half, with two clinical finishes thanks to another assist from Doku and the second from Bernardo Silva.
The result piles more pressure on Amorim, whose Red Devils have picked up just four points from their opening four games of the Premier League season, leaving them 14th in the table.
Pressure has been mounting on Amorim for weeks, including some speculation that the coach could even be sacked despite the season still being in its early stages.
Speaking to Sky Sports after the derby defeat, Amorim admitted that Man City were better than his team in the crucial moments, and took the blame himself for the defeat.
“We had a big team in the certain moments. If you look at the three goals, we can avoid the three goals. We can be more aggressive,” Amorim said.
“In these kind of games, with top teams the small margins will make the difference. The performance is not good, in certain moments they were better than us and in the end you don’t have a good feeling.
“We play against one coach that won seven Premier League titles and we are building things, trying to fight against these teams. I am not going to defend myself, it’s always the same question, trying to protect myself. We need to do better.
“If I look to the game, last year we draw and won against City and today we were a little bit better but in the small details it was clearly not goof enough. We are building things but of course we need to win.
“I’m not happier. I didn’t see one player in my team not giving the maximum. The rest is with me. The disappointment sometimes I feel we could run more, but I didn’t have that feeling today. It’s my fault, not their fault and I am fine with that.
“I know it’s hard on our fans but again, I cannot point to one player [about lack of] effort. With game intelligence we can improve but that is my fault and we can improve.”
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Bruno Fernandes: ‘On the ball we were very brave’
Following the game, Man Utd captain Bruno Fernandes admitted that he and his team must do better to bounce back from their poor start to the campaign. However, the 31-year-old believes that the Red Devils are still heading in the right direction.
“It’s not hard [to find positives]. You have to look at what we did well and it’s not enough because you want to win football games. What we did today was not enough to get a result and that’s what we’ll take from this game. Obviously look at what we have to do better and look to the next game.
“We need to score goals and not concede. We keep creating chances but were not able to score as much as we wanted. We have to be more in control. We concede three goals we could have avoided.
“When we go we have to take more risks and be more brave with the last line. When we pass to our centre-backs they go three against three and squeeze so much. The space is very narrow.”
On whether he believes Man Utd can turn things around, Fernandes added: “The result is very bad, very bad on us but I think it’s two ways of looking at this game. The goals could have been avoided. On the ball we were very positive, very brave, we were playing the ball forward. When we created chances we could have been more clean.
“We wanted what City got and that’s the three points. City were smart to get the goals in the way they did, they have a very good team and good players.”
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