Derby delight as City host Man U
Manchester United and Manchester City approach Sunday’s 166th city derby knowing defeat for either side would leave them in danger of being cut adrift in the Premier League title race. The new season is only four games old, but both sides have already squandered points -- United drawing at home to Chelsea and losing at Liverpool, City drawing at Stoke City and going down at Cardiff City.
The pair already trail leaders Liverpool by three points and should Brendan Rodgers’s men prevail at home to Southampton on Saturday, if either side loses the derby, they will find themselves six points off the pace. Both United manager David Moyes and his City counterpart Manuel Pellegrini will be experiencing the Manchester derby for the first time, but Moyes can at least draw on an impressive recent record against City.
In his last six seasons as Everton manager, the Scot led his side to victory over City in nine out of 12 games, including four consecutive successes between 2009 and 2011. Moyes can also draw solace from the fact that the trip to the Etihad Stadium marks the end of a fiendish opening run of fixtures that he complained about at the beginning of the campaign. ‘We’ve had the hardest start of all the top clubs in the Premier League so we had to make sure after these games we had a decent points total,’ said Moyes. ‘After the City game we’ll have played two or three of our biggest rivals and they’ll probably have each other to play at different times.’
City skipper Vincent Kompany is expected to make a return on Sunday after a month lay-off with an injury. The teams go into Sunday’s game level on points, but Pellegrini says he has not paid too much attention to United’s early-season form.
‘It’s not my duty to analyse how they start. It is a very good team and David Moyes is a very good manager,’ said the Chilean. ‘I think they have a lot of great players. Rooney of course is one of them, but we must not only attend to Rooney but all the big players they have.’ The season’s fourth big clash is expected to set the right tone on Sunday’s primetime showcase.
