By Emmanuel Okogba

Manchester City beat city rivals Manchester United 2-0 to compound the pressure on coach Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and continue their bid to retain the title they won last season in Saturday’s lunchtime kick-off.

United had been in the news a lot thanks to their inconsistent results. Solskjaer was on the verge of getting the sack after the 5-0 drubbing at home to bitter rivals Liverpool but result against Tottenham and an Atalanta draw made it look like things were getting back into place.

The win, City’s first Manchester derby win since 2019 takes them within two points of Chelsea who plays later today and keeps United in fifth position on 17 points, three points behind West Ham and outside the Champions League qualification zone.

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Eric Bailly’s unfortunate own goal opened the goalscoring in 7th minute before Bernado Silva snuck past United’s defence to tap in a João Cancelo cross at the stroke of half-time.

United managed just one shot on target and one corner-kick. Although they improved in the second half, it was not enough as they also lost Luke Shaw to a head injury.

“I’m very pleased. This is the game we needed”, Guardiola said after the match

United’s coach, Solskjaer said, “At the moment we are far off the top teams. The demands on me and the players are going to be high and we have to get back to what we started to look like. We have the players to do that”.

Vanguard News Nigeria