MANCHESTER, England — For a while on derby day, Old Trafford was a quiet, apprehensive sort of a place. On the field, Manchester City drew its pretty, disorienting patterns. In the stands, Manchester United’s fans watched on in truculent silence, fretting and murmuring and worrying about what was to come.

All of the noise came from the one corner where City’s fans were corralled. The lyrics of their songbook boomed around the stadium: the ones that crowed over past triumphs, the ones that reminded United of the way power has switched not just in Manchester, but in English soccer as a whole over the last decade or so. The rest of Old Trafford sat and listened, unable to find its voice.

With good reason. Manchester United, over the last seven years or so, has become a club trained to expect the worst. Not just against City: This is a team that has had to watch Liverpool run away with the Premier League this season; a team on course to miss out on the Champions League for the third time in five years; a team that has been beaten at home by Crystal Palace and Burnley, among others, in recent months.