Key occasions
I’ve bought some pre-match studying for you, beginning with this piece by Tom Bassam about Pep Guardiola’s derby file.
Marcus Rashford has performed in all 15 of Manchester United’s Premier League video games this season however that run ends in the present day: he and Alejandro Garnacho, with 22 league begins between them, have been overlooked of the matchday squad by Ruben Amorim.
The groups information is in, and the line-ups seem like this:
Man Metropolis: Ederson, Walker, Dias, Gvardiol, Gundogan, Silva, Doku, De Bruyne, Foden, Matheus Luiz, Haaland. Subs: Ortega, Stones, Kovacic, Grealish, Savio, Simpson-Pusey, O’Reilly, McAtee, Mubama.
Man Utd: Onana, de Ligt, Maguire, Martinez, Mazraoui, Ugarte, Fernandes, Dalot, Diallo, Hojlund, Mount. Subs: Bayindir, Lindelof, Zirkzee, Malacia, Eriksen, Yoro, Casemiro, Antony, Mainoo.
Referee: Anthony Taylor.
Within the blue nook for #MCIMNU 🩵
XI | Ederson, Walker (C), Dias, Gvardiol, Gundogan, De Bruyne, Bernardo, Nunes, Foden, Doku, Haaland
SUBS | Ortega Moreno, Stones, Kovacic, Grealish, Savinho, Simpson-Pusey, Mubama, O’Reilly, McAtee#ManCity | @etihad pic.twitter.com/2VP4OICPCf
— Manchester Metropolis (@ManCity) December 15, 2024
Hi there world!
It’s the Premier League’s fifth-best crew towards the thirteenth, a facet that will transfer stage with Liverpool within the home-games-only league desk in the event that they win – and lag behind solely Brentford – towards one which has overwhelmed just one crew away from house within the league all season, and that was Southampton three months and a day in the past. None of this sound very thrilling.
However it’s onerous to consider a extra intriguing latest Manchester derby. Maybe it’s come too quickly in Ruben Amorim’s spell in command of United, and outcomes – one win in his 4 league video games to this point, three in six in the event you throw within the Europa League – recommend he has but to show that ship round. However on the similar time we don’t know what Large Derby Vitality may do to them, they usually have the encouragement of figuring out that this Manchester Metropolis facet are at present worse (on kind and in transition) than most sides within the Premier League. Amorim has first-hand expertise of this, having led Sporting Lisbon to a rollicking 4-1 rout of Metropolis within the Champions League at first of final month (albeit that was a really odd sport, which I believed Metropolis ought to have received). Add to that Metropolis’s defensive damage disaster, compounded by Rico Lewis’s suspension. “The soul and the spirit of this crew is there,” says Pep Guardiola. “Now we have to deal with ourselves as a result of we’re not being on the stage we need to be additionally, so we are able to’t take into consideration the momentum of the others,” says Amorim. “We simply have to consider ourselves.”
Anyway, sufficient of that. It’s a derby, and a much bigger one than ordinary. Welcome!
