Manchester City's midfield core De Bruyne revealed that Manchester City only trained for 10 minutes of targeted tactics in the day before facing derby rival Manchester United, and the key to cracking Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's playing style is to stick to their own playing style, find the opponent's loopholes and take advantage of them.
In the final derby at Old Trafford, United's holes were too big, and soon after the opening, Eric Bai swung himself, and the mistakes of Maguire and Luke Shaw before half-time made the score 0-2. In the second half, Manchester City collected the troops, spread the control as much as they wanted, and easily held the lead.
De Bruyne explains: "The day before the match, we usually conduct targeted tactical training according to the way the opponent plays. But before playing Manchester United, Pep [Guardiola] said: 'We don't know how Manchester United will play, you guys will see when the time comes.'" So we only did a 10-minute drill or so, and then we stopped. Pep can often predict how opponents will play, but this time he doesn't know either, so he doesn't know how to deal with it. We just did what the team has been doing, but he didn't know in advance whether United would use a five-back, a four-back, a diamond-shaped midfielder or a three-striker."
There is no doubt that De Bruyne's evaluation does not mean that Manchester United's tactical changes make It impossible for Guardiola to start, but more like a satire on Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's lack of tactics and style. The fans were even more pointed out that Manchester City, although they did not conduct pre-match targeted training, but directly practiced at Old Trafford for 90 minutes.
Although City did not extend the score in the second half, Guardiola's side took the initiative with 68 per cent possession, while United had little threat at their home field. Before City's second goal, the 11 members of their team fell backwards 26 times in a row, and finally scored the ball, which was a joke with the Red Devils.
In the final moments of the game, United's two Portuguese superstars could not stand it any longer, Bruno Fernandez kicked down De Bruyne and Cristiano Ronaldo followed up with a tackle and was cautioned for a yellow card.