Match date: 2 November 2014

Louis van Gaal’s first Manchester derby comes a week after he helped guide his team to a 1-1 draw against Chelsea, with Robin van Persie scoring in the 94th minute. While Manuel Pellegrini came into the match unbeaten against Manchester United so far in his career.

Manchester United came out in a 4-1-4-1, as they did against Chelsea. Rafael was replaced by Valencia, while Rooney played alongside Fellaini in front of Blind.

Pellegrini made several changes to the side that lost against West Ham, with Demichelis coming in for Mangala to partner Kompany at the centre of City’s defense, while Milner came in for the injured Silva and Dzeko made way for Jovetic.

Manchester United’s Defense

Obviously the major turning point in the match was Chris Smalling being sent off after getting his second yellow card of the match as a result of two poor decisions on his part. However, up until that point, Manchester United still looked very vulnerable at the back as they tried to play a high line and squeeze the midfield. As Smalling and Rojo pushed up, they left a huge amount of space to be exposed behind them and twice Manchester City were able to find Agüero in dangerous positions. While Smalling and Rojo were able to recover in time, it showed cracks. Below, you can see just how high Manchester United’s line was. They are about as far from the halfway line as the ball.

After the two Agüero chances, the first at around 19:30 and the second about a minute later, Manchester United began to drop deeper, which allowed Manchester City a greater amount of possession in the attacking half and allowed City to get more touches inside of the area, which would result in numerous penalty claims for City all of which Michael Oliver waved away. When United dropped deeper, they were able to have more possession of the ball and while it was deep in their own half, they were able to keep City from creating chances and were able to work past Manchester City’s pressing fairly easily. Up until Smalling’s red card, Manchester United were well in the match and were getting good support going forward compared to City, who looked to play into the space behind the Manchester United back four and into Navas and Milner in the wide areas.

Post Red Card

As mentioned above, up until Smalling’s red card, it was nervy, but manageable for Manchester United. Following the red card, however, United were forced into a lot of changes. First, the 4-1-4-1 became a very narrow 4-4-1, with Di Maria and Rooney on the right and left of the midfield, respectively, with Januzaj subbed off to make way for Michael Carrick, who played alongside Rojo at centre back. The formation changed Rooney’s role signficantly as well. Playing on the left, he was now responsible for tracking the runs of Zabaleta and helping Shaw contain Navas. Prior to the red card, his role in centre midfield, when United were out of possession, was to essentially man mark Yaya Toure and he did so very well as the Ivorian wasn’t able to have much of an impact on the match. Following United going down to 10 men, however, Toure was able to find more space as Rooney had new responsibilities and thus was able to have a much more significant impact on the match, with his pass leading to Clichy’s pull back to Agüero for City’s goal. Below, you can see where Toure’s passes before and after the red card. You’ll see that he was unable to play much in the attacking third prior to the red card with much credit due to Rooney’s marking.

Toure was also involved in another penalty appeal for City just before half time as Jovetic scooped a ball over the United defense. Rojo was able to reach between Toure’s legs (with both players in the air) and get a toe on the ball, although it was interesting that Michael Oliver failed to give a penalty because he would have been unable to see Rojo’s touch from his position.

Pellegrini Allows United Back In

A goal up and playing against 10 men, one would bet that Manchester City would go on and kill the game off. Aside from the fact that they should have been award three possible penalties and the fact that De Gea did well to save some chances, Manchester United’s back four consisted of two midfielders and two 19-year-olds following the injury to Rojo. However, Pellegrini made some changes that allowed Manchester United to grow into the game a bit more.

The first was taking off Milner, who had an effective and efficient game on the left side of Manchester City’s midfield, and replacing him with Samir Nasri. Milner has become more of a regular in the City starting XI during Pellegrini’s time in charge of the club, especially in big games where they need a lot of energy, which is something Milner absolutely brings. Nasri found himself too high up the pitch too often and allowed Valencia to get forward more than Milner had. Immediately following Nasri’s introduction, Pellegrini brought on Dzeko for Jovetic. The Montenegrin had been playing very well up until that point. Throughout the match, he dropped into midfield to both try to break up Manchester United’s play, giving City even numbers in midfield, while he also acted as a link player between Toure and Fernando and Agüero.

Dzeko stayed high up the field, but without Jovetic acting as the extra man in midfield, Manchester United were able to get in control of the match and it was during this time that Manchester United were able to get their only two shots on target. While United were able to build attacks, City were forced into play the ball long for Dzeko to hold the ball up and for Agüero to run on to, completely bypassing their midfield.

Pellegrini reacted to United’s midfield dominance by replacing Agüero with Fernandinho, but rather than stick with a midfield three of Fernando, Fernandinho, and Yaya Toure, Toure curiously positioned himself high up the pitch, acting like a second striker. This almost had paid off for City as Toure had one shot just go wide of the post after a clever turn and a header just go over the bar late on, but it was interesting from Pellegrini considering United were in control of the ball and looking dangerous.

Conclusion

An excellent derby and a decent tactical battle between van Gaal and Pellegrini, but it was match that should have been won by a larger margin for Manchester City as United went down to 10 men in the first half and played a majority of the second half with two midfielders and two 19-year-olds as their back four.

There were certainly positives for Manchester United in the final 20 minutes of the match as they were able to gain more control in the game, but this was also down to Pellegrini’s mismanaged substitutions. It was also the first game that saw Di Maria have little impact on as the big summer signing struggled to have an influence aside from his set piece delivery.