How far can Manchester City fall? That's the question coming out of the weekend, as the four-time reigning champions suffered the latest indignity in what is now a run of eight losses in 11 games with just a single, solitary win. This latest blow came Sunday at the hands of its crosstown rivals, as Manchester United won the local derby in almost surreal fashion, turning around a first half 1-0 deficit into a two-goals-in-two-minutes late barrage to pick up the 2-1 win at City's shell-shocked stadium. The loss alone is bad enough for City, but the way that it lost, to what looked like a flaccid United side for about 98 percent of the match, will bring even more pain to Pep Guardiola and his beleaguered squad of expensive underachievers.
It's hard to say that City was screwed over by the final result, too, which might be the worst part of all. Though the hosts took the aforementioned 1-0 lead on a Joško Gvardiol header in the 36th minute—a header born only of a lucky deflection from a Kevin De Bruyne attempted cross—there wasn't really an inspiring burst of soccer behind that lead. In fact, both squads played like the struggling entities that they are; while City's struggles have been well-documented, if only by sheer strength of catharsis from everyone else in the Premier League, United has been worse on aggregate this season. After firing Erik ten Hag, finally, in late October, United sits mired in 13th even after picking up all three points on Sunday, and new manager Ruben Amorim has failed to get the Red Devils back on track in his short tenure to date.
It therefore wasn't shocking that both sides were merely going through the motions for most of the derby. Two teams that have spent an estimated fuck-ton of money on attacking firepower should not sputter to a total of six shots on target, but that's where these sides are at right now. City's midfield is so shambolic that it couldn't even prioritize possession in the Pep Guardiola-ordered fashion it has become accustomed to; I'm sure it's happened, and maybe even recently, but I can't remember off the top of my head a City-United match that felt so even in terms of controlling the ball. The final number was a mere 52-48 possession lead for City, and it felt like it. The ball sort of ping-ponged around the middle of the park between the two teams, with no cohesion or fluidity in either attack. More than chances, it felt like failed stabs into the defenses were the order of the day, as runs just fell short or passes went long over and over. Put another way, as Guardiola did after the match, "We are not so nice in the way we play. Before we were fluid, and now we struggle."
There really wasn't much to the match other than that, save for a spicy bit of scuffle in the 37th minute, when United striker Rasmus Højlund collided headbuttingly with the most washed man in the Premier League, Kyle Walker. Nothing came of it besides the promise of some excitement, which was sorely needed but eventually not delivered upon. And so, I can safely fast-forward to the 86th minute, when City's Matheus Nunes clumsily bowled over Amad Diallo in the box. Up stepped Bruno Fernandes, who had recently missed a golden chance, to take the spot kick, and the mercurial Portugal international made no mistake in evening out the scoreline, giving this match the fizzle it rightfully deserved.
Or so it seemed, until Diallo, United's 22-year-old spark plug, decided to inject in equal measure a triple dose of excitement, hilarity, and finality into the proceedings. Just two minutes after Fernandes's spot kick, United center back Lisandro Martínez hit a pinpoint, if speculative, counter-attack-starting long ball towards an onrushing Diallo, who had the touch of the match, hell, of the season, controlling the pass away from City goalie Ederson and opening himself up to a very tight angle. He then was able to do just enough on the shot to slide it past a lackadaisical Nunes and Gvardiol to give United a 2-1 lead that it might as well have earned, given how poorly City defended in the final stretch of the match:
I feel like I have said this often in the past stretch of season, but City's injuries really caught up with it here. Not just in Rodri's absence, which will continue to loom large every time the midfield puts out a crap performance like on Sunday, but also in the backline absences of Manuel Akanji, John Stones, and Nathan Ake; this is how the side ends up deputizing Nunes, a midfielder by trade that has been forced to play winger and now left back due to a lack of depth everywhere on the pitch. City simply can't control matches if it can't pass the ball around or stop attacks, and even a team as lost-in-the-wilderness as United can capitalize on that with a moment of brilliance like Diallo exhibited. This is probably not the new normal for City; it would be something about as shocking as Leicester City's 2016 title to see City slide solidly into the mid-table for a season, absent any financially related points penalty. (Speaking of, the hearing into City's alleged crimes against the soccer economy reportedly ended last week. An entire league's fanbases hold their collective breaths for what might end up being smoke and no fire come decision time in the spring.)
However, the title charge, so often City's birthright in the Pep era, seems to be terminally losing steam; Liverpool now leads City by nine points with one fewer match played, and even second-place Chelsea feels safe from City's potential comebacks, at seven points up. This is an unfamiliar place for City to be; the last time it ended anywhere outside the top two was in 2016-2017, when it finished a distant third in Guardiola's first season in charge. Once the Spaniard got his hooks into the side, the results read as one might remember: first, first, second, first, first, first, first.
To see City slumming it with the likes of Aston Villa (two points back in sixth) and the Tricky Trees of Nottingham Forest (one point up in fourth) is shocking, or it would be, if one had slept through this current stretch of incompetence. Manchester United's stunning comeback is only stunning because of United's own failures, but there's nothing surprising about City somehow bungling its way through another winless match. After all, it's the one thing that the club has managed to succeed at this season.
