“Fernando was the key player in the second half for us”.
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Mourinho picked Jesse Lingard and Henrikh Mkhitaryan in the starting lineup but replaced them at the half-time with Ander Herreria and Marcus Rashford.
“We go to one of the best stadiums in the world and win the game”, Guardiola said.
Hetherington reported that United have been “amazed at his fitness levels and professionalism” after the Sweden global demanded at his medical to know the best scores from the club’s previous tests and then beat them.
Fixating on how to nullify Guardiola rather than playing to his and United’s strengths was only ever going to backfire, and has done regularly during their rivalry. However, United were not able to find the equaliser despite coming with a better show in the last 45 minutes of the game.
And when the game started, Guardiola stalked his technical area, micro-managing every moment of City’s approach, while Mourinho crouched and made notes as the game progressed.
He was the chief, the main man – as he had once infamously declared of his opposite number during their days of intense feuding at the pinnacle of European football.
But that doesn’t appear to have put Mourinho off of the 23-year-old.
Kevin De Bruyne and Kelechi Iheanacho set each other up for goals in the first 36 minutes, during which Guardiola’s City team gave a footballing clinic in passing and movement at Old Trafford.
De Bruyne said: ‘For the fans (it means more than three points).
The critics were sharpening their knives when Arsenal fell behind in the 18th minute through a Petr Cech own goal after Dusan Tadic’s free-kick deflected off the goalkeeper.
Up against the manager who deemed him incapable of making the grade at Chelsea, the Belgium worldwide reminded Mourinho that his quality remains permanent – deployed in any position across City’s front-line, he remains a genuine tour de force.
“His personality showed me a lot today”. He was superb from the off against United, the focal point of everything City did well.
The hosts’ shock revival came, typically from the power of a cross.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic reduced the deficit just before the break during a breathless first half after City’s new goalkeeper Claudio Bravo dropped a high cross at the Swede’s feet, one of several errors during an unconvincing debut.
Then a ball forward caused confusion in the City defence and Lingard took advantage, slipping the ball inside to Ibra, who had more time than he realised and hit a weak first-time shot that was cleared from just in front of the goal.
Hart may not be ingrained with City’s current philosophy but a player of his experience would not have been as reckless in possession.
Bravo could have given away a penalty with a studs-up challenge on an infuriated Wayne Rooney, while Ibrahimovic had a goal ruled out when he deflected the ball home from a clearly offside position, but United never really got the upper hand in the match.
Guardiola may not have factored the Chilean’s outgoing on-field persona, nearly fatally when flapping at a ball in the final minute of stoppage time, now threatens to be the greatest undoing of his and City’s best-laid plans this season.
Perhaps Liverpool could be the unlikely title challengers this time round.
‘Especially in the second half, it was more hard than the first because they played very powerfully, a lot of long balls, but I think we coped well’.
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“Sometimes when things like that happen, maybe the player can think “it’s my fault, it’s my fault”.
