2 reasons why Manchester City easily beat Manchester United 3-0 in Premier League
Manchester City beat Manchester United 3-0 in a Premier League match at Old Trafford on Sunday, Oct. 29. Erling Haaland scored a goal in each half and then Phil Foden scored a third to seal the win.
United could have suffered a bigger humiliation on the day had it not been for Andre Onana, who came up with a flurry of quality saves.
Manchester City are now in the second position in the league table with 24 points from 10 matches, while Manchester United remain eighth with 15 from 10.
On that note, let us take a look at two reasons why Manchester City won the match easily:
#1. Manchester United torn apart through their right-hand side by Manchester City:
Manchester United started the match with a 4-2-3-1 formation, with Bruno Fernandes starting on the right flank. However, quite understandably, he kept moving to the central areas, leaving only right-back Diogo Dalot to defend the right side of the pitch.
The Cityzens took full advantage of that and ran riot by repeatedly playing horizontal passes to the left flank across the width of the pitch.
Jack Grealish, Bernardo Silva and Josko Gvardiol combined repeatedly to torment United through the left. City’s second goal came from one such move as Silve played an inch-perfect cross to Haaland for the latter to head in.
Minutes before that goal, Haaland could have scored his second in the first half itself after a similar move resulted in Silva playing another cross to the 23-year-old Norwegian striker. However, before that, Haaland had already collected his 12th goal of the season by converting a penalty.
#2. Manchester City's precision and fluency in their passing:
There was a plethora of inch-perfect passes and crosses played in and around the Manchester United penalty box, with a few of them resulting in goals.
Pep Guardiola’s men stamped their class yet again with their precise passing and off-the-ball movement. Not only Haaland, but most of City's midfielders and forwards moved really well to get into perfect positions inside the box even before the passes were played.
In comparison, United only relied on predictable and sporadic long balls played into the final third with desperate optimism more than anything else. Scott McTominay tested Ederson after receiving the ball from one such long pass, but that was about it as far as United’s attack was concerned.