Manchester United vs Manchester City: Five things we learnt as Pep Guardiola wins the battle of the managers

City edged a thrilling Manchester derby at Old Trafford

Kevin De Bruyne celebrates scoring Manchester City's opener (Getty Images)

Mourinho got his tactics wrong

Jose Mourinho opted for a more physical approach to the game with Anthony Martial dropped for Henrikh Mkhitaryan but City’s speed and movement exposed United’s weaknesses.

City dictated the play with their superior possession, leaving the Red Devils to play on the counter attack – only Mourinho had left his best counter attacking players on the bench in Martial and Marcus Rashford.

His defenders were also left unprotected as City targeted the full backs to great success, consequently creating pace for the likes of Kevin De Bruyne to run into. A stretched defence is not a characteristic normally associated with a Mourinho team.

City look like a Guardiola side

If United are not yet looking like a Mourinho side, then City are certainly starting to resemble a Guardiola one, in the first half anyway.

While the game became stretched and ragged in the second half – something neither coach would have planned for – City’s first half display was as good as any seen in the Premier League this season.

Rooney and Guardiola on the touchline at Old Trafford (Reuters)

They shifted the ball from left to right, with De Bruyne pulling all the strings alongside David Silva in the attacking third.

Guardiola’s challenge now is to keep that performance up for the entire 90 minutes as it is plainly obvious to see that his players have complete trust in their manager’s tactics.

Mkhitaryan not up to speed

Mourinho opted to give the Armenian his first Premier League start at the expense of Juan Mata but Mkhitaryan looked off the pace, perhaps a result of the thigh injury he picked up during the international break.

United spent much of the first half under the cosh and when they did get in a position to counter attack, Mkhitaryan’s poor control halted the move, while his crossing was also below par.

He was also at fault for the opening goal, twice opting against closing down Aleksandar Kolarov despite being yelled at by Wayne Rooney.

(Getty)

Claudio Bravo

Pep Guardiola probably thought he had heard the last of his big call to get rid of Joe Hart and replace him with his own man Claudio Bravo but the criticisms came screaming back.

The Chilean had little to do in the opening 42 minutes but when he did he made a complete hash of it. His lack of communication with John Stones – possibly down to the language barrier – gifted Zlatan Ibrahimovic the equaliser and left City’s number one rattled.

He got away with another one minutes later but his only two moments of the half nearly cancelled out all of City’s hard work.

Hart have had a wry smile on his face in a café in Turin.

Marcus Rashford came on at half time for Manchester United (Getty Images)

Rashford is a game changer

Marcus Rashford came off the bench at half time, much to the delight of the Old Trafford crowd, and United looked like a completely different side.

Within minutes he had turned Bacary Sagna inside out to create a chance for Ibrahimovic and his presence caused Guardiola to withdraw his own wonderkid in favour of holding midfielder Fernando.

After four goals in his last two games, the 18-year-old was bursting with confidence and nearly drew level for United, using his electric pace to get away from the defence only to be denied by the faintest of touches by Ibrahimovic’s offside right knee.