Terrace Talk: Man City - In big games, Pep Guardiola has an itch he cannot avoid scratching

A Man City side, badly unbalanced by the lack of Bernardo and Foden, gave the nation reason to laugh at last

Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (left) and Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola bump fists at the Etihad Stadium. Picture: Dave Thompson/PA

In the good old days, City fans were famous for their sharp brand of self-deprecating humour. Most of the time it was all we had to keep ourselves warm at night. Laugh it all off and beat the opposition fans to it on the how bad are City front. These days it is much harder to laugh at ourselves. Widescale success means we are more likely to burst into tears on occasions like this.

The only real joke to come out of this Manchester derby defeat was that little United are now clearly City’s bogey side. For all the brickbats aimed at Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, he knows how to set up at the Etihad. Even allowing for a 35-second gift, United were comfortable and City were disjointed, then profligate, then out of ideas.