Manchester City vs Manchester United

The first edition of the Manchester derby in the 2024/25 Premier League season pits out-of-sorts rivals Manchester City and Manchester United against each other at the Etihad Stadium.

Manchester City cannot catch a break these days. Following a heart-wrenching 2-2 draw at perennial Premier League strugglers Crystal Palace, the Citizens slumped to a 2-0 defeat at Juventus during midweek, throwing their hopes of securing a berth in the Champions League knockout stages into doubt. Juventus’ second-half double condemned the four-time consecutive Premier League champions to their seventh loss across their last ten competitive outings (W1, D2), contributing to the club’s worst run since 2008. That’s as many defeats as they had in their previous 105 matches combined, underlining the severity of the crisis at the Etihad. It’s needless to say that this is Pep Guardiola’s roughest spell as a manager, with Man City conceding more goals (21) than any other side across Europe’s traditional top-five divisions since the beginning of November. 

Despite Man City’s dire situation, they’ve only lost once in 11 home games this season (W7, D3), highlighting the magnitude of the task awaiting underachieving Manchester United this weekend. After back-to-back defeats to Arsenal and Nottingham Forest, the Red Devils are staring down the barrel of a third consecutive Premier League loss since December 2015. A failed attempt to avoid that fate would see Man Utd succumb to a first set of four successive away league defeats to Man City since 1955. However, Ruben Amorim’s side received a timely confidence boost ahead of this crosstown journey, overhauling an early second-half deficit in a 2-1 Europa League win at Viktoria Plzen to halt a sub-par seven-game winless streak on the road.