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Looked like a fading rivalry - 12th Dec

Match Preview

A dent in the Champions league bring The Red Devils back to Europa definitely does not go well with the fans, a frustrating swing of ups and downs in performance. This season probably will be Ole's toughest year and if he can make through with a satisfactory ranking and may be an odd cup, will pave way for a longer stint. City on the other hand have some first time stats that are so unlike them especially with Pep being the Boss. Number of clean sheets, pundits taking about good ManCity defence was so unheard off in the recent past. 

Martial recovering from the niggle but in the bench, Cavani injury, Fred and Shaw back in the lineup. De Gea back in the post. Pogba taking a much more left wing role, an unheard of position for the French man.        

First half

McTominay and Fred were tightly marking De Bruyne that shut down some of the creative moves, but with his class he did find a few but not fruitful enough for City. With Jesus trying to prove his worth and Sterling never scored in this fixture. The chances created were far and few, the shots at goal may read 11 - 9 in favour of The Red Devils but pretty much all these were comfortable saves for the respective goal keepers. A first half slightly end to end but the ball never found the back of the net. Very unlike in this fixture, I should say. To Peps standards, a very cautious start from City and United were doing the wait and watch game. Presence of Pogba kept Walkers in two minds Shaw and Bissaka did a good job in keeping Mahrez and Sterling out of the game. 

Second half

With an unfamiliar role for Pogba, but sure close to the position he would normally take up, his performance was not bad. He slowly did shift to his more familiar position in the ground and United settled into the diamond in the middle. Pep quick to notice pushed some energy by replacing Mahrez with Torres. Probably an idea to inject some phase from Walkers and energy from Torres to break down Shaw who showed some signs of cramps. Ole recognised this and instead of replacing Shaw, pulled in Martial replacing Greenwood. the structure now moved to a more 4-2-2-2, a diamond in the middle and Rashford operating from the left. This made sure Walkers stayed back in the defence and Torres was a lone figure handled ably by Shaw. 

To conclude, both the teams showed too much respect to the opposition. The tactics were more to nullify the opposition's strength and cover up their own weakness. 

A match what would see so much rivalry, hardly saw any sort of infringement. A professional game of football with a lot of sporting sprit, a very unlikely one for this fixture. Lack of crowd in the stands or has the rivalry faded off. We need to wait and see...                       

     

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