Why a terrible Manchester derby summed up this Premier League season

Complaining about the quality of Manchester United’s 0-0 draw with Manchester City feels almost pointless. What did we expect?

Well, let’s be fair on ourselves. We all know that the form book goes out of the window when it comes to a derby, so we could reasonably have expected some level of excitement. Sky Sports’ promos for the match focused on previous meetings between the sides, and for good reason. The Manchester derby has always been entertaining in the Premier League era, often defying expectations based upon the quality of the sides.

Even when United were dominant for the first 15 or so years of the Premier League, derby conditions always acted a leveller. City (when they were actually in the top flight, of course) upped their game, made things scrappy, and sometimes provided a shock.

The period between 2009 and 2013, when the sides were roughly on the same level, also produced some memorable encounters: City’s FA Cup semi-final win at Wembley, City’s stunning 6-1 victory, Michael Owen’s late winner at Old Trafford and Robin van Persie’s late winner at the Etihad.

And in the period City have dominated, United have been better than you would expect considering their inferiority in the league table, snatching surprise results on the break and twice launching comebacks out of nowhere to win at the Etihad in 2018 and 2024.

But this game felt entirely different, a clash between two sides lacking cohesion and confidence.

United at least have a familiar system, and switch play well between inside forwards and wing-backs, but there’s an absence of any creativity from deep, and no real individual quality when the ball is in the final third. Bruno Fernandes was head and shoulders above anyone else on the pitch, particularly in the first half, although Ruben Amorim has spent recent weeks constantly shuffling him between an attacking midfield role and a deeper position, inevitably discovering that when he solves one problem by moving Fernandes, another one opens up in the zone he has just vacated.

Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City remain a better side than United, but this is the poorest iteration of City in 15 years. They no longer look completely porous in midfield, which was the main problem after Rodri’s season-ending anterior cruciate ligament injury, but Guardiola’s solution at Old Trafford was fielding something resembling a midfield diamond, albeit with Kevin De Bruyne more forward than midfielder.

Plonking four players in that zone meant City lacked width, especially with Phil Foden and Omar Marmoush playing narrow and making things easy for United — rather than, for example, the way Pedro Rodriguez and David Villa played from out to in for Guardiola’s Barcelona. Full-backs Matheus Nunes and Nico O’Reilly have offered attacking drive at times this season, but generally with off-the-ball running. Here, confronted quickly by United’s wing-backs, they turned backwards and played the ball into a congested midfield zone.

De Bruyne struggled to find a breakthrough on Sunday (Michael Steele/Getty Images)

It was, frankly, a terrible watch. To say it sums up both clubs’ seasons seems obvious, so perhaps a more fitting summary is that it sums up the Premier League season overall.

The expected top sides have, collectively, performed far short of expectations. City have been incredibly poor since Rodri’s injury (even someone who suggested Guardiola should go out on a high at the end of last season could not have predicted this). United and Tottenham Hotspur have been woeful and remain 13th and 14th. Chelsea started surprisingly brightly but have become dull and predictable. Arsenal have not mounted a title challenge because they are overly cautious and reliant on set pieces for goals. Liverpool are clearly the best side in the league by a distance, but are floundering at the time when title winners usually peak, and might — a little harshly — be considered poor by title-winning standards. This weekend, none of the top five were playing one another, and yet none of them won.

The sheer flatness of the Premier League run-in was underlined by the fact champions-elect Liverpool lost 3-2 at Fulham earlier in the day, and you barely bothered to check the league table to work out precisely how costly it could be. The previous day, Southampton’s relegation was confirmed — the earliest relegation in the Premier League era — and the other two promoted teams have no chance of avoiding the drop either.

There is, it should be acknowledged, a good race for the Champions League places, with outsiders punching above their weight, and it remains hugely impressive that Nottingham Forest are third and have proved themselves capable of beating the traditional big boys. The quality from, say, sixth to 10th is the best in years; it seems odd that a side as impressive as Bournemouth are on such a poor run that they find themselves clinging onto their position in the top half of the table, and yet also still seven points behind defending champions Manchester City.

For long periods, this has been a perfectly watchable Premier League season. In addition to those good sides, there are also some excellent individuals (Liam Delap, Matheus Cunha, Dejan Kulusevski, Fernandes, Mikkel Damsgaard) having excellent seasons for clubs in the bottom half of the table.

But a league campaign is meant to build towards a crescendo. There is supposed to be tension, nerves and crucial matches decided by small margins. Instead, heading into the alleged business end of the season, there isn’t much to play for.

After a couple of weekends waiting for the return of Premier League, amid a delightfully sunny spring across England, the sense from Old Trafford wasn’t merely that neither side won, but that all of us who bothered watching had lost.

(Top photo: Zohaib Alam – MUFC/Manchester United via Getty Images)