Two excellent derby preview articles...
Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 6:58 amOne by Henry Winter....one by the Neviller
Manchester City v Manchester United: Blue Moon rising as Roberto Mancini consigns club's joke image to history
In the first Manchester derby, with the clubs in nascent form back in 1881, Newton Heath were helped on their way to victory when the ball “was put through the West Gorton goal by one of their own backs”, according to the Ashton Reporter.
By Henry Winter
Manchester City's capacity for own goals on and off the pitch, for grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory, was famously noted by Franny Lee with his pithy observation that “if there was a cup for cock-ups, City would win it”.
Yet what Sheikh Mansour’s money and Roberto Mancini’s management have done is maximize the possibility of cups and reduce the likelihood of cock-ups.
City leave less to chance now on and off the pitch. They make fewer mistakes. There will still be the gaskets blown like Carlos Tevez’s unscheduled golfing break and Mario Balotelli’s assorted indiscretions with fireworks and foul, all off these cock-ups with attitude, but City are a slicker, smoother operation. A bit more like Manchester United.
The best compliment paid City comes in the changed tone of United’s manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, when discussing them. When City put up their infamous Tevez “Welcome to Manchester” poster, a dig at the fact that United reside in Trafford, Ferguson described them witheringly as “a small club with a small mentality”.
On the eve of this Derby, Ferguson spoke respectfully of how City have gone out and bought “the best and most experienced players”. He was not lobbing a barb across the neighbours’ fence about their spending.
Ferguson was simply complimenting the quality of Mancini’s squad, acknowledging the clear and present danger they pose.
What also needs noting in the construction of the new City is that the dressing-room is filled with good people, as well as good players.
Joe Hart, Vincent Kompany, Joleon Lescott, James Milner, Gareth Barry, David Silva and Sergio Aguero, amongst others, present the club in an excellent light on and off the pitch. Reliable is a word that has crept into the City lexicon.
There is a unity amongst Mancini’s players seen in recent performances, in the way they supported each other last weekend at the PFA awards dinner. If they can ease Tevez and Balotelli out of the door this summer, building around more solid characters, the new City will continue to take impressive shape.
When the money from Abu Dhabi began flooding into Eastlands, the club were encouraged to build slowly, to go for evolution rather than revolution. They made mistakes, classic old-school City cock-ups like the cack-handed pursuit of Kaka, but now seem in incredibly capable hands from boardroom to dug-out. A good manager enjoys the full backing of a good board. It’s almost peaceful in there.
Their plans for the new Etihad Campus are stunning, also helping regenerate a deprived area. All that Arab petrol money is being invested wisely. Somehow, the club with all the cash are not behaving like lottery-winners, are not parading all the crassness of the newly-minted classes. Little arrogance can be found around the Etihad.
Good people work there. Many have done so for years, loyally through the tough times, and appreciate this period of prosperity.
City’s rise is reflected in a prominence in cup competitions, winning the FA Cup last year, but the title is another step up, another test of their calibre and ambition. What could prove a “league decider”on Monday, according to Ferguson, showed City’s “great progress”. More praise.
Their credibility will be enhanced with a title. They have to vanquish United and then guard against the fate that would have befallen the old City, beating United and then slipping up in their next game, throwing all the good work away. City face Newcastle United next weekend and that will be no jolly day out at the Blaydon Races.Alan Pardew has made St James’ Park imposing again.
City have to defeat Manchester United first in the king of all Derbies, a game being depicted as the most seismic local tear-up in the history of English football. Everton and Liverpool dueled in the mid-Eighties. London clubs exchanged blows occasionally down the years in the heavyweight category. Rarely with as much at stake as this.
This is neighbours at war, fighting for the right to be regional and national champions as the world watches.
Never before have so many overseas broadcasters flocked with twitching microphones to an English game (16 compared to nine at the last El Clasico). On Monday is Babel in boots, the ultimate world game: Arabs versus Americans in the board-room, Italian against Scot in the dug-out and all before a playing troupe drawn from Argentina to the Ivory Coast, England to Ecuador.
City are favourites, boast more players in form, have Tevez on a mission yet United possess resilience in their DNA.
Ferguson’s defence must show far more organization and concentration than against Everton last weekend when they allowed Nikica Jelavic, Marouane Fellaini and Steven Pienaar to run rings round them. Mancini will have watched that DVD, noting United’s vulnerability to clever movement. Aguero and especially Tevez will be poised.
This is the most important game of Rio Ferdinand’s season; he has to marshal that back-line well. Patrice Evra’s positioning has been poor while Jonny Evans, for all his undoubted improvement, still has a mistake in him. Ferguson will surely not risk starting Rafael da Silva following the Brazilian’s chastening experience against Everton. Chris Smalling offers a better option at right-back for this game, his greater physical presence also important at defending corners against the power of Yaya Toure, Kompany and Lescott.
United’s defence was exposed by Everton partly because Ferguson’s midfielders did not protect them enough. Paul Scholes and Michael Carrick will need to sit deeper at times at the Etihad, filling the space that Tevez likes to drop into.
Central midfield presents Ferguson with a real conundrum. It is in the Scot’s nature, and in keeping with United’s great tradition, to field wingers and he can select from Antonio Valencia, Nani and Ashley Young. Yet City are so powerful in the centre that Carrick and Scholes could be outgunned.
Tactical tweaks could be made. Ferguson could start Wayne Rooney on the left of a five-man midfield, omit a winger, deploy Giggs with Danny Welbeck as the lone striker. That would signal caution.
That would break up the hugely promising Welbeck-Rooney axis. Some have suggested that Ferguson should play Rooney up top, keeping Welbeck in reserve. Nonsense. Welbeck deserves to start; he’s playing well, scoring, and constantly troubled City’s centre-halves during their FA Cup encounter in January. As a local lad, Welbeck knows full well how much the Derby matters. He’ll be up for this.
Ferguson should be true to his instincts: be bold. The expectation is that he will go for the jugular, starting 4-4-2 with Rooney dropping back into midfield when City have possession. United also need two wingers partly from a defensive perspective, keep deep City’s full-backs, their only source of width.
For all City’s strengths, and the widespread view that Tevez will appear in Tuesday morning’s headlines, a personal view is that United will survive. Even if they fail to beat United, the old uncertainties should not come racing back in like a detritus-filled tide. City are in the ascendancy, a respected rival to United, the Blue Moon rising and the Premier League will come their way one day. Keep calm and carry on building.
That first Derby was described by the Ashton Reporter as “a pleasant game’’. This derby will be fireworks, full of sound and fury, signifying everything. Hold tight. The heirs to Newton Heath and West Gorton are colliding again.
This Manchester derby could impact on the clubs' next three years
By GARY NEVILLE
Authority: a person or a group of people holding power; confidence resulting from great expertise and experience; the ability to influence and control others.
On Monday night a football match takes place. It is a fixture that has taken place 162 times before. It is a fixture that has always had local pride at stake. But on Monday night this fixture is about an awful lot more than that. This can be more than a match.
I was a United player for 18 years but I never took part in a domestic game of this magnitude. Yes, I played in title deciders many times but never in one that was a derby game.
This is the most intense Manchester derby there has been and possibly the biggest Premier League match in its 20-year history.
On one level, it is the title decider. This is the game that people will look back on in 20 years when they talk about the extraordinary 2011-2012 Premier League season. There have been many twists and turns but this is the game that will define the destination of the title.
There might still be big matches to play but surely, even in this craziest season, the winner of this match will go on and win the title?
But I wonder if it’s even more important than that. Because for me it’s all about authority: authority in Manchester, authority in the Premier League and authority in English football.
Imagine what it would mean to Manchester City if they could win and go on to win the league? It would give the club and their players the sense of entitlement, confidence and belief that only comes with winning a title. Doing so against United would only add to that renewed sense of authority in the city and in the Premier League.
They would have a hardness and toughness from staying the course over 38 games that would be added to their undoubted ability. And that would serve them well in the future.
We’ve seen it with Arsenal and then Chelsea. Once you win one title, you often go on to win another.
But imagine if they lost. Imagine if, having got back into the title race, they see United win the title at their own ground. That would only reinforce United’s sense of superiority and City’s feeling that they might never get one over their old rivals.
With the financial backing they have, City will keep coming at United, of course. But psychologically it could be a telling blow.
How will that group of players react? How will City’s owner react if they don’t win? Will the owner feel he has to change the manager? Will the club feel they have to make major changes to the squad? Will this group of players even be around to have another go at United? And for those who do stay, do they have the will to start all over again next season?
They might feel the chance will never come their way again. That’s how I felt in 1994-95, when United couldn’t win at West Ham and lost the title to Blackburn. I remember thinking: ‘I might never be here again.’ I was devastated.
There’s nothing worse in your professional life than regrets. I was lucky to have experienced players and a manager around me who had been there and who could tell me we could be back.
I know the clubs are playing for three points on Monday but the effect of the result could impact on the clubs for the next three years.
It is difficult to explain the magnitude of the occasion within Manchester. Speaking to people in the city this week, it is clear that Manchester, collectively, has lost its nerve.
Sir Alex Ferguson spoke about it being a game for masochists and one City fan said to me: ‘I’m a wreck, I’m a wreck, I’m really a wreck.’
I’ve never known United fans so excited yet so anxious about a game. City fans are the same. The thought of beating United and wresting the title from them is something that was unthinkable a few years ago and now is in touching distance. But the thought of their greatest rivals winning the league at their ground is almost too much to bear.
For United fans, the thought of Carlos Tevez scoring the winner in the last minute or, the alternative, the thought of seeing Paul Scholes crash one in from 30 yards, means that as a fan, you veer in your mind from the unthinkable to the wonderful.
It has been made worse by the big run-up to this game, with eight days of worrying time. If you ’re United, you’ll be thinking: ‘What if we’d beaten Blackburn at home, what if we’d kept our 4-2 lead against Everton?’ If you’re City it will be: ‘What if we had just beaten Sunderland at home, or not dropped stupid points at Swansea and Stoke?’
As a player, you have to remove all those thoughts from your mind but as a fan it’s impossible.
United have taken the players away to Wales for a few days before the game, to get them out of the city, away from families, to prepare and relax quietly and in a focused way, like they did before the recent Blackburn game at Ewood Park, when they went to St Andrews in Scotland. City have stayed in Manchester with their normal routine.
Which is the best way? We won’t know until after the game but we do know there won’t be a minute that passes when the players, managers and coaching staff aren’t thinking about this game.
Preparing for a match like this is almost like an out-of-body experience. You don’t remember whether your wife has told you that the washing machine has broken or whether your kid has a cold. All you’re thinking is about your job, the match, the outcome. And trying to make sure the positive thoughts - the goal, the reward, the success - outweigh the negative.
Because of the long build-up, tactically both teams will be prepared to the last detail of where they should be at all times. It means the ultimate result will come down to authority on the pitch. That’s what I’ll be looking for.
By that I mean which players bring down the ball out of the sky with their first touch early on? Which players head it back to the keeper rather than panic and head it out for a corner? Which players take an extra touch to compose themselves, rather than hooking it forward? Which players look as though they believe it’s their moment? Perhaps, most of all, which players keep their discipline?
We’ve seen the two most recent Manchester derbies massively affected by sending-offs this season, with Jonny Evans at Old Trafford and Vincent Kompany in the FA Cup. Whatever you do, do not lose your discipline.
John Terry might have got away with it on Tuesday night, in that his team still went through, but, believe me, that is a freak of nature. Get sent off early on in this game and you’ll probably cost your team the title.
Lastly , players: do not let this moment pass you by. You have to grab opportunities like this with both hands. There will be casualties. If you cannot be trusted in these matches, you don’t belong at this level and will be released.
That’s why these players earn the money they do and play for their countries and the biggest clubs: to deliver in these moments, under pressure. That’s how you become considered a great player.
When the talking has finished and the worrying about what might happen is over, which players will seize control of the game? Which players will have the willpower, the determination and the nerve to demonstrate their authority tomorrow night?
That will be the key to the outcome of the match, the destination of the title and the immediate future of these clubs.
Manchester City v Manchester United: Blue Moon rising as Roberto Mancini consigns club's joke image to history
In the first Manchester derby, with the clubs in nascent form back in 1881, Newton Heath were helped on their way to victory when the ball “was put through the West Gorton goal by one of their own backs”, according to the Ashton Reporter.
By Henry Winter
Manchester City's capacity for own goals on and off the pitch, for grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory, was famously noted by Franny Lee with his pithy observation that “if there was a cup for cock-ups, City would win it”.
Yet what Sheikh Mansour’s money and Roberto Mancini’s management have done is maximize the possibility of cups and reduce the likelihood of cock-ups.
City leave less to chance now on and off the pitch. They make fewer mistakes. There will still be the gaskets blown like Carlos Tevez’s unscheduled golfing break and Mario Balotelli’s assorted indiscretions with fireworks and foul, all off these cock-ups with attitude, but City are a slicker, smoother operation. A bit more like Manchester United.
The best compliment paid City comes in the changed tone of United’s manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, when discussing them. When City put up their infamous Tevez “Welcome to Manchester” poster, a dig at the fact that United reside in Trafford, Ferguson described them witheringly as “a small club with a small mentality”.
On the eve of this Derby, Ferguson spoke respectfully of how City have gone out and bought “the best and most experienced players”. He was not lobbing a barb across the neighbours’ fence about their spending.
Ferguson was simply complimenting the quality of Mancini’s squad, acknowledging the clear and present danger they pose.
What also needs noting in the construction of the new City is that the dressing-room is filled with good people, as well as good players.
Joe Hart, Vincent Kompany, Joleon Lescott, James Milner, Gareth Barry, David Silva and Sergio Aguero, amongst others, present the club in an excellent light on and off the pitch. Reliable is a word that has crept into the City lexicon.
There is a unity amongst Mancini’s players seen in recent performances, in the way they supported each other last weekend at the PFA awards dinner. If they can ease Tevez and Balotelli out of the door this summer, building around more solid characters, the new City will continue to take impressive shape.
When the money from Abu Dhabi began flooding into Eastlands, the club were encouraged to build slowly, to go for evolution rather than revolution. They made mistakes, classic old-school City cock-ups like the cack-handed pursuit of Kaka, but now seem in incredibly capable hands from boardroom to dug-out. A good manager enjoys the full backing of a good board. It’s almost peaceful in there.
Their plans for the new Etihad Campus are stunning, also helping regenerate a deprived area. All that Arab petrol money is being invested wisely. Somehow, the club with all the cash are not behaving like lottery-winners, are not parading all the crassness of the newly-minted classes. Little arrogance can be found around the Etihad.
Good people work there. Many have done so for years, loyally through the tough times, and appreciate this period of prosperity.
City’s rise is reflected in a prominence in cup competitions, winning the FA Cup last year, but the title is another step up, another test of their calibre and ambition. What could prove a “league decider”on Monday, according to Ferguson, showed City’s “great progress”. More praise.
Their credibility will be enhanced with a title. They have to vanquish United and then guard against the fate that would have befallen the old City, beating United and then slipping up in their next game, throwing all the good work away. City face Newcastle United next weekend and that will be no jolly day out at the Blaydon Races.Alan Pardew has made St James’ Park imposing again.
City have to defeat Manchester United first in the king of all Derbies, a game being depicted as the most seismic local tear-up in the history of English football. Everton and Liverpool dueled in the mid-Eighties. London clubs exchanged blows occasionally down the years in the heavyweight category. Rarely with as much at stake as this.
This is neighbours at war, fighting for the right to be regional and national champions as the world watches.
Never before have so many overseas broadcasters flocked with twitching microphones to an English game (16 compared to nine at the last El Clasico). On Monday is Babel in boots, the ultimate world game: Arabs versus Americans in the board-room, Italian against Scot in the dug-out and all before a playing troupe drawn from Argentina to the Ivory Coast, England to Ecuador.
City are favourites, boast more players in form, have Tevez on a mission yet United possess resilience in their DNA.
Ferguson’s defence must show far more organization and concentration than against Everton last weekend when they allowed Nikica Jelavic, Marouane Fellaini and Steven Pienaar to run rings round them. Mancini will have watched that DVD, noting United’s vulnerability to clever movement. Aguero and especially Tevez will be poised.
This is the most important game of Rio Ferdinand’s season; he has to marshal that back-line well. Patrice Evra’s positioning has been poor while Jonny Evans, for all his undoubted improvement, still has a mistake in him. Ferguson will surely not risk starting Rafael da Silva following the Brazilian’s chastening experience against Everton. Chris Smalling offers a better option at right-back for this game, his greater physical presence also important at defending corners against the power of Yaya Toure, Kompany and Lescott.
United’s defence was exposed by Everton partly because Ferguson’s midfielders did not protect them enough. Paul Scholes and Michael Carrick will need to sit deeper at times at the Etihad, filling the space that Tevez likes to drop into.
Central midfield presents Ferguson with a real conundrum. It is in the Scot’s nature, and in keeping with United’s great tradition, to field wingers and he can select from Antonio Valencia, Nani and Ashley Young. Yet City are so powerful in the centre that Carrick and Scholes could be outgunned.
Tactical tweaks could be made. Ferguson could start Wayne Rooney on the left of a five-man midfield, omit a winger, deploy Giggs with Danny Welbeck as the lone striker. That would signal caution.
That would break up the hugely promising Welbeck-Rooney axis. Some have suggested that Ferguson should play Rooney up top, keeping Welbeck in reserve. Nonsense. Welbeck deserves to start; he’s playing well, scoring, and constantly troubled City’s centre-halves during their FA Cup encounter in January. As a local lad, Welbeck knows full well how much the Derby matters. He’ll be up for this.
Ferguson should be true to his instincts: be bold. The expectation is that he will go for the jugular, starting 4-4-2 with Rooney dropping back into midfield when City have possession. United also need two wingers partly from a defensive perspective, keep deep City’s full-backs, their only source of width.
For all City’s strengths, and the widespread view that Tevez will appear in Tuesday morning’s headlines, a personal view is that United will survive. Even if they fail to beat United, the old uncertainties should not come racing back in like a detritus-filled tide. City are in the ascendancy, a respected rival to United, the Blue Moon rising and the Premier League will come their way one day. Keep calm and carry on building.
That first Derby was described by the Ashton Reporter as “a pleasant game’’. This derby will be fireworks, full of sound and fury, signifying everything. Hold tight. The heirs to Newton Heath and West Gorton are colliding again.
This Manchester derby could impact on the clubs' next three years
By GARY NEVILLE
Authority: a person or a group of people holding power; confidence resulting from great expertise and experience; the ability to influence and control others.
On Monday night a football match takes place. It is a fixture that has taken place 162 times before. It is a fixture that has always had local pride at stake. But on Monday night this fixture is about an awful lot more than that. This can be more than a match.
I was a United player for 18 years but I never took part in a domestic game of this magnitude. Yes, I played in title deciders many times but never in one that was a derby game.
This is the most intense Manchester derby there has been and possibly the biggest Premier League match in its 20-year history.
On one level, it is the title decider. This is the game that people will look back on in 20 years when they talk about the extraordinary 2011-2012 Premier League season. There have been many twists and turns but this is the game that will define the destination of the title.
There might still be big matches to play but surely, even in this craziest season, the winner of this match will go on and win the title?
But I wonder if it’s even more important than that. Because for me it’s all about authority: authority in Manchester, authority in the Premier League and authority in English football.
Imagine what it would mean to Manchester City if they could win and go on to win the league? It would give the club and their players the sense of entitlement, confidence and belief that only comes with winning a title. Doing so against United would only add to that renewed sense of authority in the city and in the Premier League.
They would have a hardness and toughness from staying the course over 38 games that would be added to their undoubted ability. And that would serve them well in the future.
We’ve seen it with Arsenal and then Chelsea. Once you win one title, you often go on to win another.
But imagine if they lost. Imagine if, having got back into the title race, they see United win the title at their own ground. That would only reinforce United’s sense of superiority and City’s feeling that they might never get one over their old rivals.
With the financial backing they have, City will keep coming at United, of course. But psychologically it could be a telling blow.
How will that group of players react? How will City’s owner react if they don’t win? Will the owner feel he has to change the manager? Will the club feel they have to make major changes to the squad? Will this group of players even be around to have another go at United? And for those who do stay, do they have the will to start all over again next season?
They might feel the chance will never come their way again. That’s how I felt in 1994-95, when United couldn’t win at West Ham and lost the title to Blackburn. I remember thinking: ‘I might never be here again.’ I was devastated.
There’s nothing worse in your professional life than regrets. I was lucky to have experienced players and a manager around me who had been there and who could tell me we could be back.
I know the clubs are playing for three points on Monday but the effect of the result could impact on the clubs for the next three years.
It is difficult to explain the magnitude of the occasion within Manchester. Speaking to people in the city this week, it is clear that Manchester, collectively, has lost its nerve.
Sir Alex Ferguson spoke about it being a game for masochists and one City fan said to me: ‘I’m a wreck, I’m a wreck, I’m really a wreck.’
I’ve never known United fans so excited yet so anxious about a game. City fans are the same. The thought of beating United and wresting the title from them is something that was unthinkable a few years ago and now is in touching distance. But the thought of their greatest rivals winning the league at their ground is almost too much to bear.
For United fans, the thought of Carlos Tevez scoring the winner in the last minute or, the alternative, the thought of seeing Paul Scholes crash one in from 30 yards, means that as a fan, you veer in your mind from the unthinkable to the wonderful.
It has been made worse by the big run-up to this game, with eight days of worrying time. If you ’re United, you’ll be thinking: ‘What if we’d beaten Blackburn at home, what if we’d kept our 4-2 lead against Everton?’ If you’re City it will be: ‘What if we had just beaten Sunderland at home, or not dropped stupid points at Swansea and Stoke?’
As a player, you have to remove all those thoughts from your mind but as a fan it’s impossible.
United have taken the players away to Wales for a few days before the game, to get them out of the city, away from families, to prepare and relax quietly and in a focused way, like they did before the recent Blackburn game at Ewood Park, when they went to St Andrews in Scotland. City have stayed in Manchester with their normal routine.
Which is the best way? We won’t know until after the game but we do know there won’t be a minute that passes when the players, managers and coaching staff aren’t thinking about this game.
Preparing for a match like this is almost like an out-of-body experience. You don’t remember whether your wife has told you that the washing machine has broken or whether your kid has a cold. All you’re thinking is about your job, the match, the outcome. And trying to make sure the positive thoughts - the goal, the reward, the success - outweigh the negative.
Because of the long build-up, tactically both teams will be prepared to the last detail of where they should be at all times. It means the ultimate result will come down to authority on the pitch. That’s what I’ll be looking for.
By that I mean which players bring down the ball out of the sky with their first touch early on? Which players head it back to the keeper rather than panic and head it out for a corner? Which players take an extra touch to compose themselves, rather than hooking it forward? Which players look as though they believe it’s their moment? Perhaps, most of all, which players keep their discipline?
We’ve seen the two most recent Manchester derbies massively affected by sending-offs this season, with Jonny Evans at Old Trafford and Vincent Kompany in the FA Cup. Whatever you do, do not lose your discipline.
John Terry might have got away with it on Tuesday night, in that his team still went through, but, believe me, that is a freak of nature. Get sent off early on in this game and you’ll probably cost your team the title.
Lastly , players: do not let this moment pass you by. You have to grab opportunities like this with both hands. There will be casualties. If you cannot be trusted in these matches, you don’t belong at this level and will be released.
That’s why these players earn the money they do and play for their countries and the biggest clubs: to deliver in these moments, under pressure. That’s how you become considered a great player.
When the talking has finished and the worrying about what might happen is over, which players will seize control of the game? Which players will have the willpower, the determination and the nerve to demonstrate their authority tomorrow night?
That will be the key to the outcome of the match, the destination of the title and the immediate future of these clubs.