Manchester City secured an expected 3-1 victory over Manchester United at the Etihad this afternoon, although the game was in the balance for longer than anticipated despite a strong performance from Pep Guardiola's side.
Manchester United threatened to produce a huge shock for parts of the contest. While they rarely threatened the opposition goal, Marcus Rashford's stunning long range strike early on gave them something to hold onto.
However, you always got the sense that once Man City did find the back of the net, more goals would come. That turned out to be the case.
Phil Foden levelled the scores just after halftime with a brilliant long range shot of his own, with the England international going on to score the all important second goal ten minutes from time.
It came on the back of a tidy one-two with Julian Alvarez, with Foden finishing well on the back of some lax defending from United.
In the end, he would prove to be the key moment in the game, with Erling Haaland going on to make sure of the three points with a goal in injury time. As a result of this victory, Manchester City closed the gap at the top of the league to a single point.
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Roy Keane not happy with Manchester United defending on City goal
While Manchester City were always expected to win this game, Manchester United fans might well be disappointed with how the second half of the game played out.
Coming out of the interval with the lead, they conceded a goal fairly quickly and completely failed to lay a glove on City from that point onwards.
Speaking on Sky Sports after the game, Roy Keane was far from happy about the United defending that allowed Manchester City to get back into the game.
"He should have made his mind up for him" 👀
Roy Keane and Micah Richards on what United could have done to stop Foden 👇 pic.twitter.com/NMSyxF5OCo— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) March 3, 2024
United have got the players back here, I would be critical of the United defenders here. They have the bodies back, but two or three players are just having a breather at the wrong time.
You've got Foden, and we've seen him doing it many times this season, cutting in and the players are just having a breather for that split second. You can't do it against Foden, we've seen it before. There's two or three of them.
When you've got a left footer cutting in people think it's dangerous, but when you've got bodies in there. This is still early in the second half, it wasn't near the end.
You've got to switch on, there's two or three of them. You've got to get out to the ball!
It's Foden, he's an amazing player who wants to come in on this side. He's come onto his stronger foot, get out to him! It's them fine details...
It's not as if they didn't have the bodies back, they had it. That's where you come around.
When I was a midfielder and I saw someone going into my area I thought 'happy days, this is where I come in and go nail somebody'.
Nah nah, get there!
It was a fantastic strike, but Keane may have a point that the Manchester United players should not have allowed Foden the space to get the shot off.
As for the team's season as a whole, the Cork man said that there were still major question marks moving forward.
That's 11 league games they've lost. That's one scary stat when you look at where United are, to give up so many goals and defeats.
We spoke last week after the Fulham game that they lacked a bit of energy, they had that (today), but in the last 20 or 25 minutes, it was men vs boys. They were just hanging in there, making mistakes, lads coming off the bench and not getting up to speed.
City's were coming on and making a difference, giving them energy. Towards the end, you're thinking 'it could be four or five'. They've got to take it.
This result ensured that Manchester City stayed within striking distance of Liverpool in the title race, with those two set to face off in a huge fixture at Anfield next weekend.
For Manchester United, this is the latest blow to their hopes of finishing in the top four this season. That is looking like an increasingly unlikely prospect, something that could have long-term consequences for Erik ten Hag's position at the club.
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