Honours Even in Drab Derby Draw

Man City 0 Man Utd 0

Like so many big matches the Manchester derby at Eastlands failed to live up to the hype after ending goalless. The game was typified by over-cautious play and a lack of creativity on the part of both sides. The campaigners for more home grown players will cite the lack of local lads being involved, resulting in an encounter that only had intermittent moments of passion between bitter rivals and neighbours in the northwest metropolis, but in actual fact it had more to do with formations.

Both Roberto Mancini and Sir Alex Ferguson put five across midfield, leaving the game congested in the middle of the park. Worse still Carlos Tevez and Dimitar Berbatov received next to no support from the central midfielders behind them, leaving them drifting out of position to receive the ball. The personnel employed were not the sort that would gamble on joining in final third attacks. Try as he might to drive at the United defence, Yaya Toure had never been so far forward and the fact he afforded no end product shows it is not his game. What a stark contrast to the last time he lined up against the Red Devils when he played centre half for Barcelona in the Champions League final last year!

The match could perhaps have panned out differently if, with just ninety seconds on the clock, Tevez had taken a shot at Edwin Van Der Sar’s goal after working an opening. His decision not to pull the trigger seemed to be an apt harbinger of what was to come. Five minutes later James Milner with little space to work in on the right wing still managed to whip in a delicious cross but no Sky Blues teammate would gamble to get on the end of it. This too was indicative of what followed. Both teams seemed genuinely afraid of losing this crucial encounter and with the 4-5-1 formation simply cancelled one another out.

What few shots did come in, a mere thirteen in total, were either wildly inaccurate or mostly comfortable saves for Van Der Sar and Joe Hart. The best chance fell to Tevez again, this time from a free kick with ten minutes left in the first half. The forty-year old United stopper had to be at full stretch to deny his former teammate who curled the ball superbly over the wall but could not beat the Dutchman. Both Rafael da Silva and Patrice Evra limped off for the Red Devils with injuries after the break. Both sides enjoyed lengthy spells in possession but didn’t seem to have the creativity to create a clear cut chance. For the neutral it was a really disappointing encounter.

For fans of either Manchester club it was thoroughly frustrating. With five minutes remaining City fans wanted a more clinical, attacking player in their star-studded squad than Pablo Zabaleta to be on the ball in the final third. It was the Argentine utility man though who cut inside from the right and alas he blazed over. By perhaps giving too much respect to one another the real winners were Chelsea, who increased their lead at the top to four points with a 1-0 win in their own derby with Fulham while the stalemate at Eastlands was played out. The Sky Blues for me need either to introduce a more attacking minded player in the centre of midfield or change formation to 4-4-2 and put Adebayor up front alongside Tevez. As for United they will have to make changes as Paul Scholes’s booking for persistent fouling was his fifth in the league and that means suspension.