Man City Terrace Talk: United’s descent into the world of ordinary has coincided with City’s ascent to the extraordinary

By the end, at the Etihad, it was a coronation for champagne football

Manchester City's Riyad Mahrez celebrates scoring their side's fourth goal of the game after it was allowed by VAR during the Premier League match at the Etihad Stadium, Manchester. Picture  Martin Rickett/PA Wire. 

When the Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön stated that “Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us,” she probably had neither Kevin de Bruyne nor Riyad Mahrez in mind. United, it is fair to say, may well still be out on the Etihad turf now, looking for further clues on the subject.

Still, watching this fixture throughout the 90s and 00s, you could be forgiven for thinking the search for the vaguest element of indestructibility in City’s make-up would take forever. All roads led down and the Manchester Derby was the fixture that always seemed to confirm it.

For six years the fixture did not even exist on the league calendar. Instead, City took to losing to Stockport and Bury and Crewe for their local humiliations. A different era, before the delights of sportswashing, before the Stretford End ticker fell apart, gave us only dark memories of Ince and Giggs and Hughes.

In the evenings of our minds, the urge to pack up and head for the hills visited on many occasions. But times change. Things move on. Even the seemingly ridiculous can eventually occur. After all those dark clouds, the sun came out. And it is still out today.

As City will soon find out, replacing a legendary manager is not exactly a cakewalk. United’s descent into the world of ordinary has coincided with City’s ascent to the extraordinary. Apart from a brief flourish in a surprisingly level first 20 minutes, this delicious change of roles was broadly underlined at the Etihad.

Given the current extraordinary times on the edge of our continent, you could this morning have been forgiven for claiming there is considerably more to life than the Manchester derby. Yes, we must not overlook the role football can play in eroding the ground that supports malevolent power, but in the great scheme of things, it all seems a little insubstantial right now.

Insubstantial was not, however, what the 22 participants had in mind for us all on this occasion. Three goals in the first 28 minutes in a febrile atmosphere with United unrecognisable as the tactical shambles of late and City intent on making it a watchable spectacle.

Avoiding form-player Mahrez and channelling everything through the Cancelo-Bernardo-Grealish magic triangle down the left, strange things were happening. Some of United’s passes were finding their man, possession was reasonably even. High in the padded seats, Alex Ferguson had yet to find a reason to gurn.

Enter captain De Bruyne. Two goals either side of Jadon Sancho’s well-aimed equaliser saw City ahead at the break. Foden’s majesty in flipping Maguire for the second made the big defender look like a fairground bollard. As the ball entered the shooting gallery, De Gea saved the bullet, but De Bruyne won the giant pink teddy bear.

If it was a bit too cut and thrust for some tastes, the second half flattened the curves and dips. A fixture that in Premier League times had thrown up more away wins than any other fixture in the competition’s history (21) suddenly began to look reassuringly like a home banker.

Tellingly, as the ball was funnelled more to the right, Mahrez weaved his magic. An outrageous half volley direct from De Bruyne’s corner swung past De Gea like it had been dragged there along an invisible thread. In fact, it had taken the slightest of nicks off the fairground bollard, carelessly left in place after Foden’s act of destruction earlier. By the time the Algerian got his second and City’s fourth, skimming a beauty off the goalkeeper’s outstretched chin, United had long disappeared into a giant rabbit hole.

Out came the Poznan. Out came the Yaya/Kolo song. Out came the box of tricks. Cancelo, with a horizontal scissors kick, Gundogan with a schoolboy scuff, should have added more. Grealish ran the right side of United’s defence so ragged that the only confirmation that Wan Bissaka was still with us was every ten minutes or so when he entered the fray to make another high-profile mistake.

By the end, it was a coronation for champagne football. The ball, now long passed into sky blue custody, was recycled around hunch-shouldered opponents. United had proved anything but indestructible. City, meanwhile, on the occasion of one of the most one-sided 45 minutes of football against the enemy, can dream the brightest of dreams.