Culture
Man City 1 Man Utd 2 – Amad’s genius, Nunes’ errors and Amorim’s set-piece problem
Amad scored a brilliant late winner in the Manchester derby shortly after earning the penalty that had put Ruben Amorim’s team level as Manchester City crumbled in the closing stages at the Etihad Stadium.
The main story before the game was Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho being left out of the United squad, with United head coach Amorim saying he made the decision after evaluating “everything”.
In their absence, United fell behind when Josko Gvardiol headed in from a short corner in the 36th minute, worsening United’s awful record for set-piece goals conceded this season.
Bruno Fernandes had a good chance to equalise in the second half when he clipped a shot wide, but it was Amad who intercepted a poor Matheus Nunes backpass and drew a foul from the same player, with Fernandes scoring the penalty.
And 54 seconds after the restart, Amad collected a through ball, lobbed it over Ederson and then steered it into the goal from a tight angle to win it. According to Opta, it was the latest into a game that the reigning Premier League champions had led and lost. City have now won just one of their last 11 games.
88 – Manchester City were leading until the 88th minute against Manchester United, but ended up losing 2-1 – the latest into a game that a reigning champion has led in the Premier League and lost. Astonishing. pic.twitter.com/9vwTcocgLw
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) December 15, 2024
Here Carl Anka, Mark Critchley and Mark Carey analyse the key talking points.
How did Amad do that?
“I just want to improve the team so I cannot treat it like a normal derby,” said Amorim on Thursday evening. It was a pre-match press conference that saw the head coach try to downplay the traditional emotional narratives that go into a game. Neither City or United are on an upward ascent at the moment, so bragging rights fell behind “earning three points” in the hierarchy of needs.
Still, Sunday’s trip to the Eithad will have made clear many things that Amorim has already made good assessments on. His team will likely have to “suffer” in the immediacy, with some players better suited to the “idea” he is trying to communicate to this squad, compared to others. Amad once again looked to be United’s most dangerous attacker but ran offside three times in the first half.
His eagerness to fashion chances in a team lacking creators saw him set off a fraction too early in crucial moments. Yet the 22-year-old’s bravery where many others were timid eventually paid off. His driving runs are illustrated in his player dashboard below.
It was Amad who sensed Kyle Walker’s backpass to Ederson was slack and wouldn’t make its intended target. It was Amad who rounded the City goalkeeper to open up a goalscoring opportunity. It was Amad who opted to pause, and wait for Matheus Nunes to foul him. And Amad who won the penalty.
Fernandes converted and it looked to end 1-1.
But there was Amad again. Latching onto a hopeful pass from Lisandro Martinez in the 90th minute before tipping it over Ederson and into the far post.
Amad lobs the ball over Ederson
Amorim’s first derby will have taught him — again — that his team’s physicality needs to be worked on. He will have understood — again — that there is much to improve on with set pieces.
And finishes from a tight angle
But he will have also learned that, in a derby, some of these players can find another level. Amad’s genius yes, but also Harry Maguire battling as the middle centre-back. Manuel Ugarte breaking up play, and more.
The road is long, but many United players are willing to walk and run it.
Carl Anka
Where did Nunes go wrong?
With a long line outside the treatment room and those fit enough to play fatigued, City find themselves in a position where they have to do things differently. See: Matheus Nunes at left-back.
Pep Guardiola did not have much other option — unless he fancied a switch of system or dropping youngster Jahmai Simpson-Pusey into a Manchester derby.
And in fairness, Nunes initially acquitted himself adequately enough, as he has when playing further up the left flank in recent weeks.
But lapses have pockmarked the 26-year-old’s Etihad career to date and that career may well be defined by the two errors that led to United’s equaliser from the penalty spot.
The backpass to play Amad through on goal could be considered an unfortunate error — but to charge back and slice through the United winger and concede a spot kick was simply reckless in the extreme.
Nunes and the foul that changed the game (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
Nunes collapsed to the turf, barely being able to lift his head from the ground, and City subsequently collapsed to defeat.
Mark Critchley
What’s Man United’s set-piece problem?
Two goals conceded against Arsenal. One against Nottingham Forest, and another conceded to Manchester City. Manchester United have picked up a concerning weakness on corners this season.
United have the second-worst defensive record on set pieces in this season’s Premier League. Eight of United’s 19 goals conceded have been from set-piece situations — at 42 per cent, that is the highest in the league. Conceding 6.8 goals per 100 corners is the second-highest rate behind Wolves, who are 19th and sacked head coach Gary O’Neil today.
Amorim’s side appear to have tweaked their coaching approach to dead balls, with new assistant Carlos Fernandes taking over set-piece duties from Andreas Georgson but the frailties remain. The team appear to be defending in a hybrid style, where the majority of players mark zonally, and a handful are tasked with man-marking duties.
So long as a United player gets first contact on the initial cross, they can defend the set piece well enough. But if they are faced with a team that opts for a layered approach to their attacking play, things can get complicated.
City’s opening goal came from a short corner-kick routine where Ilkay Gundogan ventured over from the edge of the box to take a touch and tee it up for Kevin De Bruyne.
The Belgian’s cross might have taken a touch from oncoming United defenders, but it still managed to loop towards the back post where it was headed in by Josko Gvardiol.
It was a straightforward goal to concede. United were too slow to close down City when the corner was taken short, and not aggressive enough to stop Gvardiol in the air. It was a goal that spoke to something Amorim brought up earlier in the week, before facing FC Viktoria Plzen.
“We have to be very good in second phases,” said the United head coach on Wednesday. “Such as after crosses, the next cross we have to improve on. We have to improve on these details. We have to be so much better in set pieces and we have to win it.”
The saying says the devil is in the details. United haven’t quite mastered their new routines yet.
Carl Anka and Mark Carey
How important are Gvardiol’s goals?
In the season before Erling Haaland’s arrival, seven City players hit double figures in all competitions. Since then, only two have scored 10 or more goals in a campaign: Phil Foden twice, Julian Alvarez once.
Repurposing a team of false nines to serve the best centre-forward of his generation has had its benefits and its side-effects, making Guardiola’s side look blunt in those occasional spells when Haaland struggles for goals.
Step forward Josko Gvardiol. This derby’s breakthrough was his fourth of the season, moving him clear behind Haaland as City’s top-scorer. No defender has scored more Premier League goals (eight) in 2024.
Gvardiol has become a semi-reliable goal source, not only aerially like today or at Bournemouth, but also with deft finishes and screamers like at Newcastle and Wolves respectively.
OK, so four goals is hardly a glut and City need others to start chipping in too, but at times when City look bereft of ideas to break down opponents, Gvardiol is increasingly becoming the plan B.
Mark Critchley
It is a sight that no football fan likes to see, no matter your allegiance.
Manchester United’s Mason Mount fell to Etihad turf after just 12 minutes in what was only his ninth league start since the beginning of last season.
It was clear that he was unable to carry on minutes before his substitution, after signalling to Amorim that he needed to come off. It is yet another blow for the 25-year-old after calf and hamstring injuries have plagued him since his move from Chelsea.
Mount was consoled by team-mates Fernandes, Martinez and Amad — even engaging in a short exchange with international team-mate Phil Foden — before rallying those around him as he trudged off.
It is a cruel outcome for Mount, especially given his return to fitness under new manager Amorim and an impressive 30-minute display in the Europa League against Viktoria Plzen on Thursday night.
Prior to Sunday’s game, Mount had not managed to play more than 20 per cent of the available domestic minutes in a Manchester United shirt. You have to go back to the 2020-21 season when he last played more than 75 per cent of the possible games in the Premier League.
A fully fit Mount offers so much to his team in and out of possession. His intelligent positioning and relentless running are infectious to team-mates, with Mount often viewed as a manager’s dream in his ability to execute the tactical instructions laid out to him.
Starting as the left-sided No 10 on Sunday afternoon, Mount would have hoped to have punished Manchester City with neat interplay alongside left wing-back Diogo Dalot, making underlapping runs that appeared to be a key part of Amorim’s early training session as Mount was nearing full fitness.
It is too early for a prognosis, but Mount could do with a dollop of luck in hoping that his injury is not too serious.
Mark Carey
How ‘embarrassing’ was Hojlund vs Walker?
Shortly after Manchester City took the lead, Kyle Walker was lying on the ground and there was a scrum of players around him. Walker was holding his face and as the officials waited on a VAR check, there was a sense Rasmus Hojlund could be in trouble after squaring up to the City defender.
A melee ensues after Walker falls to the ground (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
What the replays showed though was that both players put their foreheads together, and while Hojlund leaned forward slightly it did not constitute violent conduct and certainly did not appear to have generated enough force to send Walker to the floor.
“Walker must be embarrassed,” former United captain Roy Keane said on Sky Sports.
Hojlund and Walker butt heads (Dave Howarth – CameraSport via Getty Images)
Referee Taylor’s decision was to book both players.
In the second half, it was Hojlund who went down, this time under a challenge from Ruben Dias, with Taylor not awarding a penalty and the VAR deciding it was “normal contact”.
The United striker was determined to have the last laugh, posting a photo of his clash with Walker on Instagram (second image below) after the game.
What did Pep Guardiola say?
“I’m the boss, I’m the manager and I’m not good enough. it’s as simple as that. I need to talk to them about the way we have to play and press and build up and I’m not good enough. It’s always the same problem you can fix, but it’s not. Matheus made an incredible effort playing left back really good with and without the ball but it’s happened, it’s football and we move forward.”
What did Ruben Amorim say?
“I think we deserved it. It was a very tough match but we believe until the end. We managed to score, we needed that win, it was important for us and for our fans. We were in the game for 90 minutes and that is very good. We talk about the Arsenal game, we played well in the first half, but they were not believing that we could win.
“Today was so much more different. I also believe. Then we have Fergie time and we put the things together and something magic happened. It was a good day for us.”
On leaving Rashford and Garnacho out of the squad: “For me it’s important; the performance in training, the performance in games, the way you dress, the way you eat, the way you engage with your team-mates, the way you push your team-mates.
“Everything is important. In our context, in the beginning of something, when we want to change a lot of things, when people in our clubs are losing their jobs, we have to make the standards really high.
“Today the team proved we can leave anyone out of the squad and manage to win if you play together.”
What next for City?
Saturday, December 21: Aston Villa (A), Premier League, 12.30pm GMT, 7.30am ET
What next for United?
Thursday, December 19: Tottenham (A), Carabao Cup quarter-final, 8pm GMT, 3pm ET
Recommended reading
(Top image: by Alex Livesey – Danehouse/Getty Images)
A famous poet once observed that it is difficult to get the news from poems. The weather is a different story. April showers, summer sunshine and — maybe especially — the chill of winter provide an endless supply of moods and metaphors. Poets like to practice a double meteorology, looking out at the water and up at the sky for evidence of interior conditions of feeling.
The inner and outer forecasts don’t always match up. This short poem by Louise Glück starts out cold and stays that way for most of its 11 lines.
And then it bursts into flame.
“Early December in Croton-on-Hudson” comes from Glück’s debut collection, “Firstborn,” which was published in 1968. She wrote the poems in it between the ages of 18 and 23, but they bear many of the hallmarks of her mature style, including an approach to personal matters — sex, love, illness, family life — that is at once uncompromising and elusive. She doesn’t flinch. She also doesn’t explain.
Here, for example, Glück assembles fragments of experience that imply — but also obscure — a larger narrative. It’s almost as if a short story, or even a novel, had been smashed like a glass Christmas ornament, leaving the reader to infer the sphere from the shards.
We know there was a couple with a flat tire, and that a year later at least one of them still has feelings for the other. It’s hard not to wonder if they’re still together, or where they were going with those Christmas presents.
To some extent, those questions can be addressed with the help of biographical clues. The version of “Early December in Croton-on-Hudson” that appeared in The Atlantic in 1967 was dedicated to Charles Hertz, a Columbia University graduate student who was Glück’s first husband. They divorced a few years later. Glück, who died in 2023, was never shy about putting her life into her work.
But the poem we are reading now is not just the record of a passion that has long since cooled. More than 50 years after “Firstborn,” on the occasion of receiving the Nobel Prize for literature, Glück celebrated the “intimate, seductive, often furtive or clandestine” relations between poets and their readers. Recalling her childhood discovery of William Blake and Emily Dickinson, she declared her lifelong ardor for “poems to which the listener or reader makes an essential contribution, as recipient of a confidence or an outcry, sometimes as co-conspirator.”
That’s the kind of poem she wrote.
“Confidence” can have two meanings, both of which apply to “Early December in Croton-on-Hudson.” Reading it, you are privy to a secret, something meant for your ears only. You are also in the presence of an assertive, self-possessed voice.
Where there is power, there’s also risk. To give voice to desire — to whisper or cry “I want you” — is to issue a challenge and admit vulnerability. It’s a declaration of conquest and a promise of surrender.
What happens next? That’s up to you.
Cold weather can serve as a plot point or emphasize the mood of a scene, and this week’s literary geography quiz highlights the locations of recent novels that work winter conditions right into the story. Even if you aren’t familiar with the book, the questions offer an additional hint about the setting. To play, just make your selection in the multiple-choice list and the correct answer will be revealed. At the end of the quiz, you’ll find links to the books if you’d like to do further reading.
When a writer is praised for having a sense of place, it usually means one specific place — a postage stamp of familiar ground rendered in loving, knowing detail. But Kiran Desai, in her latest novel, “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny,” has a sense of places.
This 670-page book, about the star-crossed lovers of the title and several dozen of their friends, relatives, exes and servants (there’s a chart in the front to help you keep track), does anything but stay put. If “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny” were an old-fashioned steamer trunk, it would be papered with shipping labels: from Allahabad (now known as Prayagraj), Goa and Delhi; from Queens, Kansas and Vermont; from Mexico City and, perhaps most delightfully, from Venice.
There, in Marco Polo’s hometown, the titular travelers alight for two chapters, enduring one of several crises in their passionate, complicated, on-again, off-again relationship. One of Venice’s nicknames is La Serenissima — “the most serene” — but in Desai’s hands it’s the opposite: a gloriously hectic backdrop for Sonia and Sunny’s romantic confusion.
Their first impressions fill a nearly page-long paragraph. Here’s how it begins.
Sonia is a (struggling) fiction writer. Sunny is a (struggling) journalist. It’s notable that, of the two of them, it is she who is better able to perceive the immediate reality of things, while he tends to read facts through screens of theory and ideology, finding sociological meaning in everyday occurrences. He isn’t exactly wrong, and Desai is hardly oblivious to the larger narratives that shape the fates of Sunny, Sonia and their families — including the economic and political changes affecting young Indians of their generation.
But “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny” is about more than that. It’s a defense of the very idea of more, and thus a rebuke to the austerity that defines so much recent literary fiction. Many of Desai’s peers favor careful, restricted third-person narration, or else a measured, low-affect “I.” The bookstores are full of skinny novels about the emotional and psychological thinness of contemporary life. This book is an antidote: thick, sloppy, fleshy, all over the place.
It also takes exception to the postmodern dogma that we only know reality through representations of it, through pre-existing concepts of the kind to which intellectuals like Sunny are attached. The point of fiction is to assert that the world is true, and to remind us that it is vast, strange and astonishing.
See the full list of the 10 Best Books of 2025 here.
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