Manchester becoming a one-way street

Going into a game against their high-flying neighbours, it was hardly wise of David Moyes to starting batting around stats, particularly ones as weak as those which, he claimed, showed his team had matched Liverpool in the possession and passing stakes last Sunday week.

Rather more germane, it hardly needed stating, was the 3-0 winning scoreline for the Merseysiders in that game, just as the whopping 12-point gap between City and United – with the erstwhile noisy neighbours having played two games less – was the only stat that mattered before kick-off.

At the final whistle the score was again 3-0, the gap now 15 and United falling to their 10th defeat of the season. And even then, the stats could never fully do justice to the way this one-sided contest so harshly illuminated the yawning gulf now separating the blue and red sides of Manchester.