United brutally exposed as rivals City ease into second

Manchester United 0 Manchester City 3

Manchester City were not just content with moving closer to Chelsea at the top of the Premier League. Manuel Pellegrini’s team played as though determined to remind Manchester United of their new place in the pecking order and by the time they had finished, it had become another deeply chastening experience for their victims.

Edin Dzeko’s two goals, followed by Yaya Toure’s late strike, barely told the story of City’s supremacy on another night when the indignities stacked up for David Moyes and United confirmed what Bobby Charlton had said before the kick-off about having “played really, really badly” this season. Moyes’s new system, forfeiting width in an attempt to smother midfield, failed within the first minute and Dzeko’s opening goal, officially clocked at 43 seconds, was followed by a performance of almost total superiority from Pellegrini’s men.

The second goal arrived from Dzeko after 56 minutes and when Toure drilled in the third Moyes should just have been grateful that the crowd were not tempted to release more of their pent-up frustration. United have not lost six league games at Old Trafford since 1978. They are now guaranteed to finish with their most undistinguished points total in the Premier League era and it is the first time City have beaten them three times in a row on this ground for more than 40 years.

The truth – and it is inescapable – is that the gulf in quality was often startling. Pellegrini’s men started the game a team in a hurry. They moved the ball quickly, with invention and audacity. There was not a flicker of trepidation and that opening goal seemed to say so much about the deficiencies of the team in seventh position. It was a blur of speed and movement and, by the end of it, everyone inside Old Trafford already knew the night could quickly descend into yet another ordeal for the team City’s away supporters mocked – expletives removed – as the “worst champions we’ve ever seen”.

For the most part, the players in red simply stood back and watched as their opponents zipped the ball around them. At least Rafael da Silva managed a tackle on David Silva, after Toure had slipped him in for the first chance, but United were all over the place in those moments. Fernandinho returned the ball to Samir Nasri and his shot struck ricocheted off a post for Dzeko to turn the ball into an exposed goal. The scorer was in the six-yard area when he applied the finishing touch, without a single opponent reacting to the danger.

The irony was that Moyes had shoehorned in another central midfielder, Tom Cleverley, at the expense of a right-winger to try to cope with City’s superiority in this area of the pitch. Still, however, Pellegrini’s players poured through the gaps. Cleverley is in danger of becoming the player the United crowd trust the least. He was removed at half-time but it might actually have been earlier. Moyes had ordered the substitute, Antonio Valencia, to take his tracksuit off after nine minutes, only to change his mind and persist until the interval.

More than anything, City had the speed to hurt their opponents. Jesús Navas was a formidable opponent for the creaking Patrice Evra. On the opposite side, Rafael was equally vulnerable. City simply overpowered the home team as Silva weaved those elaborate little passing patterns. Touré demonstrated why Pellegrini had described him beforehand as “the complete midfielder” and Dzeko played with the sureness of touch that sometimes deserts him.

For United’s crowd these were galling moments. Marouane Fellaini, once again, offered little in a passing sense and the elbow he delivered into Pablo Zabaleta’s head follows a pattern that has been seen too many times. The referee, Michael Oliver, was only a few yards away and it really was a dereliction of duty to brandish only a yellow card.

If City had been more clinical they could have wrapped up the game in that opening half. Silva could not get a clean contact on his shot after a move that started with Rio Ferdinand losing the ball inside his own half.

Toure, with a sumptuous pass, then teed up Silva to play in Dzeko from David de Gea’s poor kick but the striker was slightly off balance and his shot was saved.

Wayne Rooney was determined not to let the game pass him by and United did at least create a couple of chances before the break. Yet nothing clear. This was not a fully coherent football team.

In defence, there were more lapses than they will care to remember. Their midfield was laboured. Moyes’s tactics, once again, were dubious, lacking width and penetration.

Early in the second half, Vincent Kompany flicked on a corner and Fernandinho flashed the next header over the crossbar. The warning went unheeded. At the next corner, Ferdinand started tracking Dzeko but ran into Fellaini. The striker had timed his run and expertly volleyed in Nasri’s cross.

City were toying with their opponents by the time Touré sent a diagonal shot past De Gea and this time the chant from the away end celebrated his long contract. “Five more years,” they sang.

Guardian Service