Forever Blue With Ian Cheeseman

Manchester City can still win the Premier League title this season. They have some of the best players in Europe and as we approach Christmas, with two thirds of the games still to be played, they remain in touching distance of the top of the table.

Having said that I can’t ignore what happened in the Manchester derby. I had been lucky enough to attend every derby since the 1970s until the 0-0 draw at Old Trafford behind closed doors. Like everyone else I observed this one from my sofa. United had been knocked out of the Champions League during the previous midweek and there was intense media pressure on their manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. The reds had only won one of the five home Premier League games before the visit of the Blues. They were suggesting that a home defeat against City might cost him his job.

By contrast, City had cruised through their group, concluding their European fixtures with a straight forward, if uninspiring win against Marseilles. They had already won their group which meant that it was purely a fixture that needed to be fulfilled. Pep Guardiola fielded a strong team, to respect Olympiakos, because either they or the French club would drop into the Europa League.

Riyad Mahrez had scored and created goals for fun and the fans were claiming he was back to his best. John Stones, the forgotten man of City’s defence, was back in the team and was helping the Blues keep clean sheets. With no fans allowed inside Old Trafford, home advantage was nullified, so the derby seemed like a nailed-on City victory to anyone with any sense.

Instead we saw the worst derby of my life time. Two teams who looked scared to lose. City, so naturally suited to attacking, held back, played it safe and only very rarely showed the tempo and quality that has seen them so imperious in recent seasons. United will have been much happier with the final outcome but there will be fans of both sides, especially after Spurs and Liverpool both drew easier looking games during the same weekend, who will claim that a point might yet prove to be valuable, once we get to May of this strange season; they may well be right.

More importantly though, from my perspective, the spectacle we witnessed was desperately lacking in style, bravery, passion and in very simple terms, a determination to win, that I have been used to from both teams during derbies. There were very few tackles and no anger. At the end of this tepid non-event it was handshakes all around and “how’s the family” when the opponents should have been snarling their frustration.

City’s defence kept a clean sheet again, which was a positive, but are the noticeable drop in goals against coming because City’s backline is much better, or is it because the whole team is being more cautious, in the big games, and leaving more men back, playing sideways and backwards passes. It makes me wonder if the aim is to bore the opposition into a sense of false security in the hope that there’ll then be one or two bits of magic that win the game.

Time will tell, but the draws for Tottenham and Liverpool keep City and United still very much in the title race, statistically at least, as we approach Christmas, no matter how bad the Manchester derby was.