City better than United

MATCH FACTS: Michael Carrick, completed passes, around 29. Er...well, maybe 30. That beautiful pass that set up Yaya Toure’s surging run and delicate finish under Edwin Van der Sar.

The Manchester derby at Wembley rightly belonged to City. The fans backs-to-the-pitch celebration borrowed from Poland was simply joyous.

But a goal full of Red errors wasn’t the only reason United lost to the old rivals. They lost because for two thirds of the match City were a better team. For 35 minutes City with two holding midfielders, looked like they couldn’t get out of their half but as the game progressed Silva and Toure began to run at United’s defence, Johnson got involved, and it all changed.

Suddenly it was City who looked brighter and more inventive. The goal was nothing less than the Blues deserved.

Partly City’s dominance was down to a rare Ferguson fault. Surely he watched City being crushed by Liverpool earlier in the week, surely he saw how Luis Suarez’s movement and speed had unmanned the City defence?

If he had he would surely have played United’s mercurial Hernandez from the start.

Instead the Reds had a lumbering and frowning Berbatov up front, a man with immense skill, but the energy of a Christmas pudding. He had two chances, the first was saved by an outstanding block from Joe Hart, the second was an inexplicable miss from about twelve inches, which he tried to cunningly disguise by feigning injury.

City also had a lumbering centre-forward who, despite having the energy of a log and the skill of a barmcake, played his most effective game in skyblue. Yes the brat that is Balotelli so challenged the United back four with his malign presence it allowed Toure, the clear Man of the Match, to exploit the space behind.

The last few days have been all about forward players. Your correspondent has seen live pairings such as Rooney/Hernandez, Suarez/Carroll, Balotelli/Dzecko and lone forwards such as Zamora and Berbatov.

Get the forward combinations right and you win football games.

With Suarez and Carroll on the pitch, mixing pace and power, Liverpool look a team transformed, capable of grasping some silverware next season. With Rooney and Hernandez playing together United look as though they comfortably belong in the last four of the Champions League. If City can find the right companion for Tevez then they can improve again next season. Balotelli and Dzecko, the fool and clod, are not any sort of solution.

The Manchester derby at Wembley rightly belonged to City. The fans backs-to-the-pitch celebration borrowed from Poland was simply joyous. Of course Balotelli had to nearly spoil the occasion by mocking the United fans and winking in a gloating way at Ferdinand, breaking that unwritten football code of not showing disrespect to other players after the game is over.

As for the United fans they should be comforted by the fact that should the Blues win the FA Cup City successes have meant United success in the past.

When City came from behind to dramatically beat Gillingham at Wembley in 1999 and leave the hole of the third division, United promptly stole their thunder by winning the Champions League and the Treble.

When City last won the League in 1969, United became the first English club to raise the European Cup.

Maybe Manchester’s football this year will have more days in the sun that this Derby day in London. After a City Wembley win in the FA Cup, might we have a United victory in the Champions League? Come May we may not be able to move in the city centre for open-top buses.