3 Key Battles That Will Decide Manchester Derby – Manchester City vs. Manchester United

By Doohan Vaz on October 31, 2014

3. Sergio Aguero vs. Marcos Rojo

Sergio Aguero has been the man in form, with his four goals against Tottenham setting a dangerous precedent for the performances to follow. He was unable to turn the game against West Ham to City’s favour last weekend, which will motivate him to deliver this weekend in a high-profile clash, just like in the clash against Tottenham. Marcos Rojo has been the only constant in an injury-hit United defence, which has seen recovering players playing to replace newly-injured players, and the lack of depth in United’s defence has shown. Rojo has performed decently so far, though he has tended to fade in and out of games. He will have to be attentive to keep track of his compatriot, Aguero’s weaving runs, which could secure him goals. Aguero will look to capitalize on the lack of coordination in United’s defence owing to the lack of a consistent defensive partnership, owing to which United has resorted to man-to-man marking, instead of zonal marking which could work better, to break away from his marker and score.

City will dig deep to ensure that they can win over this weekend, in order to shrug off the previous week’s nightmares and prove that they are still in the running for the title by beating their rivals and fellow top-4 contenders, as they are out of the Capital One Cup and are all but out of the Champions League, too. It works to City’s advantage that they have won five out of the last six Manchester derbies. United will want to show that their draw against Chelsea was not a flash in the pan, and will want to string a set of good performances instead of their current inconsistency that has seen them put in listless performances right after a good performances, leaving fans in despair. However, Louis van Gaal has a good record in derbies at all the clubs that he has coached so far, winning 17 and drawing 6 out of 30 derby matches. It will be interesting to see if both teams fight for a win or settle with a draw, knowing that a draw will salvage pride, but a negative result will put pressure on the manager at the end of the loss.