Michael Owen settled the last Manchester derby with a winning
goal in the seventh minute of injury time at Old Trafford.
Photograph: Tom Jenkins
It has only ever happened once on Sir Alex Ferguson's watch, so
long ago that the Premier League had yet to come into
existence and Crystal Palace finished third in the top tier of
English football. In 1991, Manchester City finished fifth in the
league, with Manchester United three points below
them in sixth. In seventh and eighth places that year, just to
emphasise that we are practically talking pre-history, were
Wimbledon and Nottingham Forest.
City's inability to finish within touching distance of their
neighbours in the Premier League era, never mind above them, may
have led a few bookmakers to take their eye off the ball at the
start of the season. A City-supporting friend of mine, looking for
a playful punt, managed to get odds of 33-1 on Blue Moon rising
above Red Empire. If you look at the records, perhaps that does not
seem unduly generous. If you looked at City's long sequence of
draws under Mark Hughes, you might even feel it a tad stingy.
City's colossal bank balance has not so far been brought to bear in
the current transfer window, and the three straight wins under
Roberto Mancini that took them into the top four last weekend are
not necessarily cause for premature celebration either, because the
Italian was lucky to be presented with a sequence of winnable games
and greater challenges will undoubtedly come later. But that's
enough about City. Anyone scrutinising the Eastlands operation for
pointers to local ascendancy might be looking in the wrong place.
The key almost certainly lies with United.
That's the United who have lost five games already, gone out of
the FA Cup to League One opponents, have enormous financial
problems away from the pitch and a team destabilised by injuries on
it. The United that play City in a Carling Cup semi-final this week that
Ferguson has admitted he now has "mixed views" about. His original
intention, before the FA Cup exit to Leeds, was to keep faith with
his younger, less experienced, Carling Cup side. That way, even if
you go out to local rivals, you don't admit complete defeat. Now
the United manager is talking of bringing back some of his more
experienced players for the cup tie, not necessarily picking a
full‑strength side but mixing in a bit more nous and know‑how to
try to avoid another shock on the scale of Leeds.
Not that it would be much of a shock were City to win at least
the home leg, no matter what strength of team Ferguson puts out.
They came close to drawing at Old Trafford in the league encounter
earlier in the season and since that day in September the Blues
have unquestionably improved while United have been besieged by
problems from all directions. That is the factor bookmakers and
pundits failed to consider at the start of the season. There seemed
no reason, even allowing for the loss of Cristiano Ronaldo, for
United to go into sudden and sharp decline. The league table still
argues powerfully that they have done no such thing, yet by their
own high standards United have been a disappointment this season,
and it is only through good fortune that no one else in a generally
unimpressive top four has managed to open up a commanding lead.
Why have United been such a disappointment? Three main reasons.
First Ronaldo's wow factor has been missed. Not just his extremely
useful goals, assists, free-kicks, and ability to change a game on
his own, a certain amount of fearlessness has gone and not been
replaced. Second, injuries to Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic and
others have robbed Ferguson of his first-choice back line for long
periods. Third, despite both scoring yesterday, Wayne Rooney and
Dimitar Berbatov have just not gelled as an attacking partnership.
The former is having to do too much on his own, which is never in
his best interests no matter how willing to work he might be, and
the latter, even if he is carrying a knee injury that will require
surgery at the end of the season, has not lived up to his £24m
transfer fee and failed to reproduce the form that so captivated
his admirers at Spurs.
In terms of living up to an exorbitant fee, Carlos Tevez is
doing a far better job at City. Not only is he in the goals and
growing in confidence week by week, his roaming runs and non-stop
workrate are a perfect fit with the ability of players such as
Craig Bellamy and Martin Petrov to launch quick counters. At Old
Trafford, he tended to replicate Rooney's contribution, which is
why Ferguson found it difficult to accommodate him and can be
believed when he says he has no regrets about selling him. While
the United manager must have been delighted to bank that money and
pick up Michael Owen on a free, City are now the ones with all the
attacking options, even with Emmanuel Adebayor still to come
back.
Ferguson is not about to admit that, of course, though he does
concede that City's money could make them a force in the future.
"They could offer a billion for Lionel Messi and it probably
wouldn't affect them too much," he speculated. "Given their money
anything is possible." True, but anything is still possible this
season, even if the only incomer is Patrick Vieira. And the
pressure is not on the arrivistes, it's all on the team struggling
to stay at the top.