Derby Day Dug Deep Dreamy Delight.

Derby day and what a day hey! All week, nay all month, I have been nervous about this game! More than usual and not because we are playing badly or have a weakened team on the contrary as you can gather from other  recent posts I am already so excited, about what I have wished for over the last 2 seasons seems to be coming true and  I have become savvy to the fact that in life it's often rare that you get what you wish for! So hence the nerves! It's early in the season, the enemy have started well also, but my hunch was it is not a new dawn for them, as they so desperately wish, rather a false dawn, and the game seemed to suggest that. My logic behind it is: Firstly Mourinho is not the cure but more of the disease, however one that kills you a lot slower! (I told you so on my early season post last year that his dramatic Chelsea demise was all a plot to successfully transition to United this year, called that straight away!), secondly that buying big names with big egos again is not the cure rather the disease (as we slowly ease away from a team built round a talented, lazy, ego, that in the end infected the team to it's core, to a team seemingly driven by working hard for each other, belief and team spirit, with the real power where it should be at the top, not in the end trotting around the middle of the park!). Indeed for me United reek of arrogance from top to bottom and hopefully we are cultivating the pleasant aroma of deserved confidence and team spirit! For what Pep has hopefully brought had you going into a derby, admittedly nervous, but still confident and that's without Kompany, Yaya and Sergio something unthinkable just 6 months ago!

Anyway to the game, well that first half could only be described as beautiful and a real joy to watch! It was entertainment, an industry Pellegrini had no clue he was in! However you could just sense we should have at least scored one more (maybe two!) by half time and then Bravo does that! My view on him, I'm with Pep! Your city debut United away in goal! Baptism of fire is an understatement! Yes he made that mistake and was lucky to still be on the pitch but he does/will helps us play out from the back, so in context I'm not worried.

So we let them back into it which was the last thing they deserved and even in their utter shitness they are still sporney! The second half comes and they regroup and show me why I love Mourinho at their club! My expansion on that is it was great to see Moyes, Giggs and LVG truly fuck it up, but when you are that bad you go quick! With my prediction being at least 5 years of up and down top 4 ish football, the odd trophy mainly in cups, mainly in the champions league each year, basically Liverpool under Benitez! Then once he inevitably leaves Liverpool after Benitez! Now wouldn't that just be great hey! Maybe even chuck in a bit of Neville at some point just to screw it up even more!!!

Ask any United fan and deep down they'd want Pep, some not even that deep! For we are already being entertained and treated to beautiful football something they crave too and unless Mourinho reinvents himself completely (which I guess isn't impossible with his kind of personality!) they ain't going to get that for a long time I think!

Anyway to the players De Bruyne exquisite as always! Again I repeat already top 5 in the world for me. Silva delightful! (City fans who said he was past it last year I knew where talking tosh, just the system and the manager the problem there). Stones an inspired purchase and a must it feels. His partner Otamendi reborn and living up to his initial hype! So much so Kompany could not just walk back into the team, did you ever thing you'd be saying that! Sterling a bit off the boil but here's hoping he keeps improving under Pep and his replacement Sane looked the real deal when he entered the fray. Kolarov! Well what can you say! I remember writing in an earlier blog for a derby that it was an act of God to stop him playing by injuring him in the warm up, but now it seems Pep has pretty much rebuilt him over night! Gone of the days when he got the ball shit himself and simply fell over to try and gain a foul, he's a man reborn!

So overall a great day we thoroughly deserved to win, but leaving just with that little thought we need to score more when we are playing like that. Penalties?! Smeanalties?! And if so we would have simply dug deeper and scored another!

Colin Bell stand, Third tier.