So that’s it then. It’s all over until the next time and people are beginning to wonder what all the fuss was about.
At this stage it is probably worth mentioning that, in order to make sense, this article is better when read after the previous one which can be found here.
The draw was the widely predicted result and so it came as a surprise when City emerged victorious. This situation, though, is hardly critical for United at this early stage of the season.
What was as unpredicatble as the result was the manner in which it was played out. Manchester United played the first half as though they were still tired from all the travelling. Manchester City gave an object lesson in how to retain possession and pass the ball. It was quite surprising that, at the break, it was only 2-1 to City.
Kevin De Bruyne had opened the scoring when defensive mistakes by first Eric Bailly, and second Daley Blind, allowed him a clear run on goal. he wasn’t going to miss.
Number two came when another De Bruyne shot came back off the post straight to Kelechi Iheanacho who couldn’t miss.
United were handed an undeserved lifeline just before half-time when Claudio Bravo spilled a Rooney free-kick to Zlatan Ibrahimović who did very well to place a controlled shot just inside the post.
The second half saw changes to the United team. They brought on Ander Herrera and Marcus Rashford to replace Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who never quite got into the game, and Jesse Lingard who was awful.
This gave United new impetus and they looked a different team. After 50 minutes Guardiola took off Kelechi Iheanacho and replaced him with Fernando in a defensive manoeuvre designed to hit United on the counter-attack.
Leroy Sané came on for his debut when Raheem Sterling was taken off and the final changes were Pablo Zabaleta replacing Kevin De Bruyne for City and Anthony Martial coming on for Luke Shaw in a last throw of the dice for United.
Other than a disallowed goal from Rashford though, United rarely threatened and, in fairness, the damage had been done in the first half and they were unable to undo it in the second.
So City win the first Mourinho-Guardiola derby and go three points clear at the top for a short while anyway. Chelsea can address that later in the day.
Also, the questions from the previous article have now been answered. No, there wasn’t a feast of goals but it also didn’t end in a scoreless draw.
The amount of players on the pitch remained at 22 throughout the game and the amount of managers at pitch-side remained at two.
The game remained tight right until the fifth minute of added time so I would be surprised if any fans left early.
Mark Clattenburg had an excellent game and, of the players, the two biggest disappointments were Claudio Bravo for City and Jesse Lingard for United. On these performances neither are good enough for the clubs they currently represent, time will tell.
The record between the two managers is now nine wins to three in favour of Pep Guardiola and Mourinho must be wondering what he has to do to beat the man consistently.
The next derby match will tell us if he has learned anything from this one.