1. Fairly even first half but we bossed it in the second. City were there for the taking. They sat back and invited us to come at them. Our own careless passing prevented us from getting a goal as much as their defensive work.
2. First Gareth Bale, now Carlos Tevez and David Silva. The players who everyone rants and raves about are impressively neutralised by our defence. They make it look easy too.
3. Go on, Rafael! If ever there’s a way to endear yourself to the fans it’s squaring up to a despised opponent. Only 20-years-old and skinny as owt, Rafael stood his ground against that disgusting little troll thing.
4. Our full-backs are part of our great attacking threat, with Rafael and Patrice Evra up there as the best fullback combination in Europe. Disappointing to see both of them forced out of the game through injury. No disrespect to Wes or O’Shea, but you have to wonder what our first choice fullbacks could have added in those final 5 minutes.
5. Welcome back Michael Carrick! He was composed on the ball, confident and started to look like that player who helped bring the title back in 2007. Fabio Capello will have been wondering why he put that useless oaf Barry in his team this summer when comparing their performances this evening.
6. Nemanja Vidic is a brick wall. Every ball in the air was his, his timing for tackling was perfect, and I can’t remember a single occasion when a City player got the better of him. Rightly man of the match.
7. You have to wonder what Mancini has spent his money on. In the second half they only had one thing in mind: not losing. At home and in a derby, that is a disgrace. They parked the bus, showed no imagination up front and couldn’t give us a game. Remember the derby days of years gone by, with dross like Sinclair, Vassell and Jon fuckin’ Macken scoring against us? Yeh, we’d go on and win the league or a trophy, but at least City fans could hold their head up high after derby day. Where can they get any pride from performances like that? Another source of embarrassment.
8. You have the admire the work rate of Darren Fletcher. With time running out, Toure and Tevez on two separate occasions threatened to break, but Fletch ran harder and nicked the ball off them. He hasn’t had his greatest season so far but you can’t underestimate the effect that extra effort he puts in adds to our team, and our results.
9. Blue tinted specs? Are you fucking serious you small time knob eds?
10. If Ferguson wants to be a truthful man, he can’t say our main objective was to win the game if he is going to replace Dimitar Berbatov, who had played so well outside their box all game, with Javier Hernandez. Play the two together, go for the gamble, and win the game. We wanted to win tonight and certainly worked harder at it at City (not hard though is it?) but they were there for the taking tonight.