But the England defender, who made amends with a brilliant strike after Paul Pogba’s quickfire double, said: ‘I owed them that.
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And as if someone had written the script for a Hollywood movie, Smalling made amends for his earlier mistake by volleying in the victor from a free-kick.
There were just 97 seconds between Pogba’s first and second goals.
The United boss was, though, confident his side possesses the attacking options to hurt City.
“At half-time we were feeling sorry for ourselves, we wanted to go out there and play with pride and thought we fully deserved it in the end”, Smalling said.
“We are not the team that people think we are, we aren’t as bad as people think we are, I’m not as bad a manager as people think I am and the players aren’t as bad as people think they are. We say we are here and we try to do it”. “We would like to beat them, we would like Spurs to beat them next week, we would like them to be champions as late as possible”.
Before that, however, they will attempt to overturn a 3-0 deficit against Liverpool in the Champions League quarter-finals.
Guardiola said: “We did absolutely everything”.
United’s victory has only delayed City from winning the Premier League for a few more weeks.
Before the dramatic second half comeback, City dominated the first half. But as far as our intention, there are no complaints’.
“A special day for United which is a pity”, Guardiola said in his post-match interview. If they play their best side, it’s hard to see United keeping them out.
Paul Pogba, the French midfielder, had been poor in the opening 45 minutes but it was his two goals that put United back in the game. It is what it is. In the first half of the game was nearly over, we created enough chances and had good situations but [the result] is ok. We created enough to score more.
Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has stated that it was not his intention to crash Manchester City’s title celebration as he was more interested in getting the important three points.
“I didn’t want to lose against City”, he told Sky Sports.
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“But he’s improving. Against Swansea I was happy and today him, (Nemanja) Matic and (Ander) Herrera, I think they were phenomenal for 90 minutes”. They need a win against Spurs at Wembley on Saturday to stay on course for the title with United hosting West Brom on Sunday having boosted their hopes of finishing second after this famous derby victory.
