Vidic: United smarting after derby woe

Manchester United skipper Nemanja Vidic has admitted Sunday’s 4-1 derby humiliation at Manchester City was a painful experience.

The magnitude of the loss at one stage looked like being so great, manager David Moyes admitted he was forced to make a defensive substitution purely to try and keep the scoreline respectable.

It certainly does not reflect well on Moyes that United suffered such a heavy defeat so early in his reign, and has seen them pushed out to 9/2 third favourites to retain their Premier League title.

Vidic insists there is no added significance to the result because a new man is in charge, pointing out United lost similar games during Alex Ferguson’s time in charge as well. But the Serbian did not enjoy the experience one little bit.

“It is horrible to lose the derby game,” he said.

“It hurts. Trust me, no-one will want to remember this.

“It doesn’t matter whether we are losing or winning, you will always go back to that question, is the manager good? Are the players good?

“I am not looking at it that way at all.

“This is a club that has a history. This is a club that has players who have won so many titles and the players are all national team players. There is so much experience. This loss has hurt but the most important thing the new manager and the old manager said was that you have to bounce back and win the next game.”

A sizeable number of United fans are beginning to question Moyes.

Yet too much has been invested in the Scot, not least Alex Ferguson’s reputation given Moyes was his choice, for even a flicker of doubt to be felt amongst the Old Trafford hierarchy.

It is beyond question though that the early months of the transition have not been as smooth as United would have liked given their failure to strengthen during the transfer window and damaging defeats to City and Liverpool.

And Moyes’ assessment of the rationale behind Tom Cleverley’s introduction in place of Ashley Young told its own story.

“We had to make sure it didn’t get any worse,” he said. “Were we really going to score five? Probably not. We had to make sure we tightened up.”

Having also masterminded a rather tepid draw with Chelsea, a first victory over top-line opposition cannot come quickly enough.

And, as luck would have it, he gets another chance tomorrow night when a Liverpool side bolstered by the return of Luis Suarez, head to Old Trafford in a Capital One Cup third round tie that has taken on far greater significance.

“It is how we respond,” said Moyes.

“That is what we do here. We move on. It is only one game.

“I always knew any manager would have found it tough given the first six games we have had.

“But we are ready to go on and I look forward to the next one.”

While Moyes was left to reflect on a painful derby experience, his opposite number was far happier.

City host Wigan in the League Cup tonight and manager Manuel Pellegrini feels the derby win showed his team’s true ability.

Pellegrini said: “It is the way we want to play. We played very similar to how we played the first game against Newcastle (in City’s opening game).”

“We are just starting. Every match is different but all the fans can be sure we will try to play with the most offensive and attacking team we can.”