The Derby della Basket Case (Feat. Adam Monk)
Rarely have both MAN CITY and MAN UNITED been in such turmoil coming into this crosstown brawl.
Have you seen the news? Manchester City are losing football matches. A lot of them. They lost to Juventus in the Champions League on Wednesday, their seventh defeat in 10 matches across all competitions. They lost to Bournemouth, Sporting Lisbon, Brighton, Tottenham (twice), Liverpool. They’ve won just once since October 27.
It’s almost unspeakable turmoil for a Pep Guardiola team, unprecedented in his career across the Premier League, the Bundesliga, and La Liga. On the question of how the champions of England can dig themselves out of it, the Catalan does not seem to have the answers. He was clawing at his own nose. Now he’s shell-shocked on the sideline.
Of course, no City scandal can compare to Manchester United’s state of affairs. They’ve been a disaster for a decade, cycling through players and managers and—just recently—sporting directors without much to show for it. That FA Cup victory over these opponents back in May seems a long ways away now, and the decision to re-hire Erik ten Hag on the back of it has been confirmed as a calamitous one.
Now they’ve got another promising young coach in Ruben Amorim, but he’s fast discovered the scale of the task here. The Red Devils have lost two on the bounce and slipped to 13th in the Premier League. Considering the sheer amount of money spent, the players trotting out onto that Old Trafford pitch are simply not good enough. This Sunday, they’ll trot out across town at the Etihad, and their best hope is that their opponents are in their own kind of disarray.
Joining us to preview this peculiar Manchester derby is Adam Monk, a presenter for FourFourTwo, DAZN, and BBC Manchester who’s a devout City fan:
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4 more matches worth watching, 4 stories worth reading, and 2 items of football gear worth snatching…..
MATCHES
WOLVES vs IPSWICH
Sat @ 10am ET, 3pm UK
Relegation scrap! Which one of these bottom-feeders can get themselves afloat? Southampton are cooked in this division, surely, but these two are four points from safety and could probably get into lower mid-table with just a month of decent form. Such is the parity of the Premier League so far this season, though Ipswich got a bitter taste of top-flight life against Bournemouth last weekend, shipping two goals after the 87th minute to throw away a 1-0 lead. Meanwhile, Wolves manager Gary O’Neil seems to be on the brink of defenestration. They’re even writing stories about José Mourinho taking his job!
NOTTINGHAM FOREST vs ASTON VILLA
12:30pm ET, 5:30pm UK
This is fifth against sixth in the Premier League, as Forest look to snatch Villa’s spot as the charming upstarts of the Top Six. There are a lot of teams hanging around this region of the table, to be fair—these two on 25 points are one ahead of Brighton and Bournemouth, two ahead of Brentford and Fulham—but the contestants here have hold of the European places as things stand. Nuno Espirito Santo just rattled off another victory over Manchester United last week, while Villa have quietly won three in a row (including the midweek 3-2 over RB Leipzig in the Champions League) to leave some really poor form in the rearview.
BRIGHTON vs CRYSTAL PALACE
Sun @ 9am ET, 2pm UK
The A23 derby or the M23 derby—it depends which roadway you prefer—is an unusual one. These two teams aren’t particularly close to one another geographically, nor have they spent many seasons competing for titles. But they do hate each other thanks to some nasty entanglements in the 1970s, a time when former England and Spurs teammates Terry Venables (Palace) and Alan Mullery (Brighton) took their clubs from the Third Division to the First and smacked each other up along the way. I can tell you first hand, having attended one of these at Selhurst Park, that a large police presence is very much required.
This one’s down on the South Coast, where Brighton can sneak into the Top Six with a home triumph over the old enemy. Palace need to get themselves away from the relegation zone, and they made a decent start of it with a draw against City last weekend.
MILAN vs GENOA
Sun @ 2:45pm ET, 7:45pm UK
It’s a return to the San Siro for Mario Balotelli, who represented both the Milan clubs in his at-times glittering, at-times explosive career. He wore the red and black of A.C. more recently, and that’s who he’ll be matching up with this weekend now that he’s back in Serie A with Genoa. Il Grifone are just three points above the drop zone in the tightly packed table, while Milan are in danger of being cut loose from the Top Six. They need to win, though they’ll need to do it without Christian Pulisic. Their most consistent attacker this season tore his calf and will be out through January.
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READS
⚽︎ The dramatic departure of Dan Ashworth from Manchester United has earned the Inside treatment from The Athletic.
⚽︎ Over at ESPN, there’s Sid Lowe’s look at the unique travel logistics of Las Palmas, the Canary Islands club who have to travel 1,000 miles for every away match in La Liga.
⚽︎ Barney Ronay is required reading, in this case when he tackles the latest FIFA disgrace for The Guardian.
⚽︎ After Marc Cucurella’s starring role in Bootgate last weekend, The Athletic has a look at how the pros go about choosing their footwear for a game.
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GEAR
👕 Classic Football Shirts has some “Advent Deals” going on, and as of Thursday, there’s some good Roma stuff, plus those retro MLS thirds for Miami, Kansas City, and the LA Galaxy. The Bayern thirds are also in there and looking good alongside a few Venezia pieces. But personally, I might go for the Vasco da Gama options.
👕 I really do like those Galaxy throwbacks, and they’ve still got some left with Marco Reus on the back. The legend is now a champion, and while it’s not quite the Champions League or the Bundesliga, the Philip F. Anschutz trophy will have to do.⚽︎