da esport bet： United are now 11 points off fourth-placed Aston Villa with 11 games to play, and surely that means the end for the manager
da premier bet： Manchester is blue yet again, and for all Sir Jim Ratcliffe's talk of Manchester United knocking Manchester City off their perch over the course of the next three years, it will take a special effort to permanently shift Pep Guardiola's side from their position of supremacy when it comes to this local rivalry.
Though City had to come from behind to beat United for the first time in Premier League history on Sunday, they were the dominant force throughout at the Etihad Stadium, and fully deserved the three points that keeps them within one point of leaders Liverpool heading into next week's showdown at Anfield.
Marcus Rashford's stunning opening goal apart, United barely mustered a shot thereafter, and though they defended stoutly for long periods, they were eventually undone by another local lad, with Phil Foden's brace helping City claim a 3-1 victory.
Foden, for his part, maintained his sensational recent form, while Erling Haaland again got himself on the scoresheet despite missing a gilt-edged chance earlier in the piece. The Norwegian remains the face of Guardiola's team, but there is no doubt that it is Foden who has been the main driving force behind their success so far this term.
Success is something that still looks a distance away for United, while even Champions League qualification for next season now looks fanciful at best. Back-to-back defeats have left Erik ten Hag's side with an 11-point deficit to make up to fourth-placed Aston Villa over the final 11 games of the season, while the potential extra spot on offer for the team finishing fifth might even be beyond them now.
GOAL breaks down the winners & losers from the Etihad Stadium…
Getty ImagesWINNER: Phil Foden
When thinking of the most important players in this Manchester City team, most would almost-certainly name Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne first up. Then might come Rodri, who has now gone 59 games without tasting defeat at club level. This season, though, Foden deserves to be at the very top.
The England midfielder's second-half double on Sunday took his goal tally for the season to 18 – the best of his already distinguished career – with six of those coming in his last six Premier League games. Without those strikes, City would have dropped nine points and likely been all-but out of the title race.
Guardiola even wen as far as to suggest that Foden has been the Premier League's Player of the Season so far, adding: "Winning games is when you become a world-class player. Everyone plays good, but you have to win games, and he wins games."
At 23, Foden is about to enter his prime years, and has shown that he can perform at an elite level in a number of different positions. For much of this campaign, he has thrived while playing centrally, filling in admirably while De Bruyne was injured. On Sunday, meanwhile, he played mostly off the right, and gave Victor Lindelof nightmares with his movement, quick feet and sharp-shooting, which eventually led to his stunning equalising goal early in the second half.
Foden then moved out to the left late in the game, and it was from there that he was able to drive inside, exchange passes with substitute Julian Alvarez and give City the lead. It is in that position that he now looks destined to start in for England at the European Championship this summer, with Jude Bellingham and Bukayo Saka locked in to the other positions behind Harry Kane in Gareth Southgate's attack.
Southgate was on hand to see yet another Foden masterclass in person during the derby, and the Three Lions boss will no doubt be thrilled to see that he has yet another genuine Ballon d'Or contender to select this summer.
AdvertisementGetty ImagesLOSER: Marcus Rashford
It took less than eight minutes on Sunday for Rashford to remind everyone of his quality with his 30-yard thunderbolt, which will surely be a contender for Goal of the Season. It should have been a platform for the striker to give his best performance of the campaign, but instead he had one of his worst displays, the goal an anomaly in yet another abject individual showing.
Rashford had fired back at his critics this week for questioning his commitment to United, and Ten Hag emphasised that the striker had battled back from an injury scare to be fit for the derby. Leaving aside the fact that going on the lash in Belfast the night before you are due for training is an interesting interpretation of commitment, Rashford has undeniably been lacking focus. And he could not focus on what he needed to do in three crucial moments at the Etihad.
First, he used his chest rather than his head to control a high ball that would have put him clean through and ended up sending it backwards, allowing Kyle Walker to catch him up. Then he failed to connect properly with a teasing cross from Alejandro Garnacho at the far post. Finally, in the second half, when receiving a through ball from McTominay he tried to draw a foul from Walker rather than get into the penalty area. Even Ten Hag admitted that the contact from Walker was "very soft" and he could have no real complaints when play was allowed to continue, leaving City to storm down the other end to equalise through Foden.
It completed a miserable day for Rashford which had started so well. And despite all the promise he has been showing in recent weeks and the signs of a good understanding forming with Rasmus Hojlund, Rashford is ending up with the same end result: crushing disappointment and a sense that the world is against him.
Getty ImagesWINNER: Out-of-work managers
It's set to be a huge summer for the managerial merry-go-round, and any coaches looking for work will be keeping a close eye on their phones. The news that Jurgen Klopp, Xavi Hernandez and Thomas Tuchel are all stepping down at the end of the season means that three massive jobs will be available, at Liverpool, Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
Now make that four, because after this latest debacle, there is no way that Erik ten Hag will remain at United beyond May.
The Dutchman's hands were admittedly tied by a litany of injuries, with eight players unavailable, including both his centre-forwards and both of his left-backs. But the way his team approached the game was befitting of a small club, and once Foden had cancelled out Rashford's howitzer with an unstoppable strike of his own, Ten Hag had no response.
His side continued to play with 10 men behind the ball after falling behind, and while City fans groaned when it was announced that eight minutes were to be added on, if anyone should have been complaining it was United as they had eight more minutes to endure.
And endure is what they will have to do for the final three months of the season as their hopes of sneaking back into the top four have been well and truly extinguished. Ten Hag will also have some enduring to do, too, as he must know his days at Old Trafford are numbered.
He has now lost 11 Premier League matches, as many as David Moyes when he was sacked in 2014, and in fewer matches than the Scot. He has 11 games left of the league season and is on course to break the United record for the most defeats in a campaign (12 in 2014 and 2022).
The defeats are not the only concerning statistics for Ten Hag, either. His side have scored as many goals as Luton Town, who are 18th in the table, while their goal difference is now back down to minus two.
Getty ImagesLOSER: INEOS
Imagine being Sir Jim Ratcliffe and being reminded that you had forked out £1.25 billion ($1.6bn) for this mess…
It was less than two weeks ago that the INEOS CEO had declared he wanted to "knock City off their perch". On this evidence, he will need a very large stick indeed, as well as a considerable war chest.
Ratcliffe is a man in a hurry and has already made some big calls, appointing former City director Omar Berrada as his new CEO and convincing Dan Ashworth to jump ship from Newcastle and become the Red Devils' next sporting director. He will soon have to hire a new coach, although that is unlikely to fix United's problems any time soon.
Even though the club desperately needs the institutional overhaul that he and Sir Dave Brailsford are overseeing, the area which needs addressing the most is the squad. If the two team's second-half performances did not already illustrate the enormous gulf in class between the Manchester rivals, then a quick look at the respective substitutes' benches would have summed it up. While City could call upon a serial winner in Alvarez, United's only attacking alternative was Antony, who has become a laughing stock and potentially the worst-ever signing in Premier League history.
Alvarez duly set up Foden's second strike shortly after coming on, while Antony lost control of the ball moments after he arrived on the pitch. The rest of United's bench consisted of five unproven youngsters with barely a handful of first-team appearances between them and the cumbersome Sofyan Amrabat.
Ten Hag's starting XI also contained several players who are no longer fit for this level, especially the 36-year-old Jonny Evans, who can hold his own against relegation fodder like Burnley and Luton but simply cannot compete against world stars like De Bruyne and Haaland.