Manchester City will have to wait to win the title
Manchester City 2-3 Manchester United. It was a great derby and a very empathic performance from United coming back from 2-0 down at the break. During the first half Mourinho’s men were absent and the party was about to start at the Etihad stadium. They had no shot on goal in the first 45 minutes the first time since 2015 and a match against Man City as well…
But, Paul Pogba who according to Guardiola was offered to City in January responded with back-to-back goals in less than 90 seconds! Tied at 2-2 it was a much different game and City were not able to move the ball as they were doing during the first half. Finally Smaling punched a header into the net to complete the comeback. Man City could and should have been awarded a penalty for a foul on Aguerro but United prevailed and prevented City from wining the title on their watch…
Man United, Coach Mourinho on the second half comeback
“I’m really happy for the fans because I know for the fans the result against a direct rival is always important and recently we did it against Chelsea, Liverpool and now City. For them it’s a nice feeling. I said before the match in an honest way that my objective was not to spoil any celebration because they are going to celebrate sooner or later. The objective was to fight for points because we need points.
Even if Manchester United doesn’t win the title for the next 50 years, Manchester United is Manchester United and if I don’t win anything I am Jose Mourinho and the players are the players. We are honest people and honest professionals and we always try to do our best. I am really, really pleased for us as a group that we can finish in the top four and we have a big chance to finish second with this fantastic result.
I gave them the example of many matches when a team is losing 2-0 and can recover so credit to the boys because they believed and they kept their shape and it’s a very important result for us because mathematically I think we need six points to finish in the top four. That objective is the compulsory objective so we need six points in three matches at home and three away.
So I’m pretty confident today has helped with that and to finish second I think is very important. I think we are four points ahead of Liverpool with one match in hand and we are four ahead of Spurs and City need to beat them to win the title. Our challenge is to finish second.”
Man City coach Guardiola on the tough week with six goals concedded.
“We had a good game in general, especially of course the first half. But it’s boxes, in that level, in that competition, against that rival. So when you have the chances you have to score two and it’s possible that we could’ve scored three. Of course you always have bad moments, and we’ve had bad moments the last two games.
Every time they arrived they scored a goal. When this happens it’s so complicated to win the games. We created enough to score more. Congratulations to United. Now we’re going to try and stand up again and focus on Tuesday.
In football anything can happen, it’s the first time we’ve lost two games in a row this season and now we have to recover and try again, go back to the basics and win games. We’re going to try on Tuesday and in the next games.”
Next for the Citizens is a tough a week with Liverpool coming and a huge overturn comeback to complete followed by another tough opponent with Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday. Maybe the Citizens will have to wait longer than they expected..?
