England’s Manchester (AP) — On Sunday, Manchester City defeated Manchester United 3-1 in a one-sided derby highlighting the division between the two Premier League rivals. Phil Foden, however, led the recovery before a remarkable error by Erling Haaland in the first half. After a rasping long-range goal from Marcus Rashford in the eighth minute and a shocking error from the prolific Haaland from a distance of only two meters, City was behind 1-0 at the break. After Haaland’s earlier error, Foden scored the equalizer with a rising drive in the 56th minute and then finished the game with a low strike off an inside feed from Julian Alvarez in the 80th.
“I always thought he would find the net. Foden, a 23-year-old attacker from England, is currently winning games, according to City boss Pep Guardiola. His double this season has brought him to 17 goals overall, a career high. Haaland still had time to make up for his miss, using City’s 27th shot of the game to score the third goal in stoppage time after a defensive blunder. After celebrating with Foden after his goal, which was his league-high 18th of the season, Haaland fell to the ground in mock relief. The two damaged their rivals once more after scoring hat tricks in City’s 6-3 victory over United the previous season.
With 11 games remaining in a title competition that appears to be racing to the wire, second-place City dropped one point behind Liverpool. The difference between the three leading candidates for the title would once again be two points if Arsenal defeats Sheffield United on Monday as predicted. In the meantime, United has fallen behind in the race to qualify for the Champions League. After Saturday’s victories by fifth-place Tottenham and fourth-place Aston Villa, United is now six points behind Spurs and eleven behind Villa.
The match’s lopsided outcome demonstrated that Jim Ratcliffe, whose Ineos business assumed control of United’s football operations upon the billionaire’s entrance as a co-owner, would have his work cut out for him in terms of getting the team back to being a major player in the English and European leagues. Last week, he discussed shoving City and Liverpool “off their perch” within three years. With this evidence, that might be overly optimistic. At Etihad Stadium, United was outclassed, with the majority of the encounter taking place. In the visitors’ half like an FA Cup between a premier league team and a lower-division rival. United just managed one shot on goal. Which went to Rashford, while City controlled 74% of the play overall.
However, until Foden’s outstanding opening goal, United had a chance to hold out. Even that goal was controversial, as United manager Erik ten Hag was upset. That Kyle Walker’s foul on Rashford went unpunished before City scored the equalizer. Ten Hag remarked, “It was maybe soft, but there was contact.” Foden fired a shot that soared past Andre Onana just after Ten Hag flung his water bottle to the ground. Two weeks after City was defeated 1–1 at home by Chelsea. Another draw would have dealt a fatal blow to the team’s hopes of winning. An unprecedented fourth consecutive league championship. But Foden and, rather belatedly, Haaland made sure that wouldn’t happen.
Therefore, City will be playing a seismic match at Anfield. On Sunday with the potential to deal a major blow to Liverpool. In the title chase and to be right on their heels. Since suffering a 1-0 defeat at Villa on December 6. City has gone 19 games without a loss across all competitions. Ratcliffe begins work on a massive rebuilding project. And in its current form, United can only dream of such a record.
Onana’s performance, which repulsed City with a string of superb saves in the second half and left little chance to stop Foden’s breakthrough, was one thing that United could be happy about. The other was the caliber of Rashford’s goal. A thunderbolt from thirty meters after Bruno Fernandes was let past City’s defense by Onana’s long clearance. But after that, it was only one-way traffic, and United was unable to stop the blue wave.
Blog By:- ExpertSadar
