Manchester City v Manchester United: Premier League – live

It has been, in truth, a poor half of football. Or a perfectly good half of poor football. One of the two. The goal owed a fair amount to luck, De Bruyne pretty much blasting the ball into the nearest defender and the deflection turning it into a masterful inch-perfect spinning wondercross, but Gvardiol’s header was very good. There is hope here for United, but if Amad Diallo is going to be the one making the key runs beyond the home defence he needs to time them better.

Half time: Manchester City 1-0 Manchester United

45+4 mins: From that free-kick, United mess up their attempt to play their way out from the goal kick and City end up with two minutes of possession and pressure, ending with Foden’s shot being deflected, and then saved. Corner.

46+2 mins: De Bruyne wins a free-kick on the right, pretty much on the spot where he took that shot a few minutes ago. He takes it, and sends it straight into touch.

45+1 mins: There’ll be four minutes of first-half stoppage time, or thereabouts.

44 mins: Amad Diallo is perpetually offside. The concept of holding his run seems entirely foreign to him. He’s caught offside again.

43 mins: Dalot’s back-pass forces Onana to come out wide of his area to prevent a corner. He then passes to Maguire, who isn’t really ready for it, whose blind pass goes straight to De Bruyne. Onana by this stage is running back to his goal, and De Bruyne’s first-time 40-yarder from the right touchline goes straight to him.

40 mins: The free kick is swung into the area, and seems to come off Mainoo and run behind. The refereed gives United a corner.

39 mins: Walker fouls Hojland, who leaps up and returns to confront him. The two players put their foreheads together, contact which ends with Walker flinging himself to the ground. It’s pretty shameful from Walker, and the referee isn’t fooled. Both players are booked.

38 mins: Now Kyle Walker is on the ground, the crowd is baying, and all 22 players run to join in with some handbags.

GOAL! Manchester City 1-0 Manchester United (Gvardiol, 37 mins)

35 mins: Fernandes tackles Bernardo Silva from behind again, on the halfway line. This time he doesn’t get the ball, and City get a free kick.

31 mins: Ederson keeps the ball for a while, and then pumps it downfield, over the head of Haaland and into the hands of his opposite number. “Greetings from Oregon USA,” writes Chris Amirault. “I know City critics emphasize the team has gotten slower on their feet — Kyle Walker being the prime example. But don’t they seem far less speedy in their decision-making? They used to zip it around like prime Barca as recently as last year, and now they consistently seem to take an extra second on the ball. A case of brain fatigue, or just the loss of confidence?” But to play that game you need multiple players with the combination of technique and speed of thought required to play that style – how often have they been able to play De Bruyne, Foden and Bernado Silva in the same team this season? (It’s a genuine question, I entirely missed the month of October, and a good chunk of November, but my sense is not often.)

29 mins: Bernardo Silva dribbles into the area and looks certain to end his run with a shot on goal, but Bruno Fernandes slides in from behind with a challenge that had to be perfect and very much was.

27 mins: The most remarkable thing about the fact Rashford is not involved here is that United would really benefit from having a player with precisely his characteristics (but fully motivated and in form), against a side that look weak on their flanks and is fragile against pace on the counter.

26 mins: Chance! Um, kind of! Ugarte prods the ball through to Diallo, who runs clear into the area, but he a) shoots wide and b) is offside.

23 mins: De Bruyne to Haaland to Foden, who sways this way and that before taking a shot that deflects wide. Dias heads over at the near post from the corner; at the back post Hojland’s attempt to mark Haaland involves a full bear hug.

22 mins: A good chance for United to create something, but Diallo’s pass to Hojland has way too much pace and can’t be controlled.

21 mins: Which ends with the first shot of the game, a left-footed half-volley from Foden that is firmly struck but goes a yard wide.

20 mins: Whistles from the crowd as United keep the ball, and pass it around the left-hand corner of City’s penalty area. Then cheers when they give it away, and a crossfield pass to Nunes allows them to break.

17 mins: Mazraoui plays Mainoo into trouble on the edge of United’s penalty area, but City can’t take advantage.

14 mins: Kobbie Mainoo comes on. Mount has played around 17% of United’s Premier League minutes this season, and assuming that’s a minor muscle injury – he walks off the pitch unaided and without apparent physical agony – it’ll be a few weeks before he plays any more.

13 mins: Mason Mount’s game is over. It’s not a contact injury, he just goes down off the ball and the camera finds him sitting there, looking absolutely gutted.

11 mins: Amad Diallo is played into space down the right. He’s offside by a few yards, but still the linesman waits until he gives the ball away before he raises his flag. That was probably clear enough to have been given at the time.

10 mins: Dalot’s second crossing opportunity of the game, this time on his right foot, is emphatically overhit and ends in a goal-kick.

9 mins: It is, as it should be, high-paced, low-precision stuff so far. “We’ve just been told (in the USA commentary) that the first derby was United representing a local church versus City representing a railway,” writes Justin Kavanagh. “Not much has really changed: The Reds haven’t had a prayer recently, while the Sky Blues have gone off the rails completely.”

6 mins: A first foray forward for United, whose break ends with Ederson catching Dalot’s cross from the left.

5 mins: De Bruyne swings a looping cross towards the far post, where Haaland is being marked by Martinez. The defender wins this one.

3 mins: Some early possession for City, which ends when Doku takes on Mazraoui and runs out of play.

1 min: Peeeeep! The home side get the ball rolling.

Blue Moon rings out. Hand shaken, coin flipped, teams huddling. Kick-off imminent.

The players are in the tunnel-type mirror-walled foyer area. Kick-off just a few minutes away. “So, reading between the lines, Amorim is saying that Rashford got dressed wrong?” writes Matt Dony. “I bet he put his socks on before his shorts. Nothing weirder.” I’m with you here. Socks go on last, simple.

An email! “Looks like City’s injury crisis is really starting to bite, with just £200m of talent on the bench,” writes Tim Woods. “Still, as a Liverpool fan I find myself in that rare position of hoping for a United win. Despite their troubles, I still fear City can put together a 25-game winning run to deny us (or Chelsea) the title once again.” Obviously I’m completely impartial, but it would be nice if a different team won the league for a change. Four in a row and six out of seven is quite enough for the time being.

It’s only a few months since United’s then manager, Erik ten Hag, described the idea of Rashford being dropped as “crazy”, and that “I would almost say that, as a person, you are not OK when you bring such speculation … I’m very happy with Marcus, with everything. With his defending part, offensive, he performs very good.”

A bit more from Amorim on the Rashford/Garnacho situation:

Of course the context is difficult, we have to win games and we have a difficult situation. I pay attention to everything – the way you eat, the way you put on your clothes – then I have to decide. I have a lot of players to choose from and today I’ve made my choice.

Pep Guardiola, meanwhile, has confirmed that Matheus Nunes will start at left-back for Manchester City because “he’s the only option we have”.

Ruben Amorim says, smiling, that the decision to leave out Rashford and Garnacho was down to what he has seen from them in “training, performance [and] engagement with teammates”, which feels quietly damning.

We tried to evaluate everything – training, performance, game performance, engagement with teammates. Everything is on the line when we analyse and try to choose the players. It’s my selection. I don’t want to send a message, it’s simply evaluation. Everyone understands my decision.

Meanwhile Jonathan Wilson has written about Ruben Amorim’s task at Manchester United:

There was a moment, at about 5.30pm last Saturday, when there seemed a genuine danger that Manchester United might be turning into a serious football club. But it took only two minutes and the sight of Nikola Milenkovic soaring above Lisandro Martínez for that facade to collapse. Two further weird goals later – the sort of accidents that speak of a profound carelessness – and it was clear that the banter era still has some time to run.

That was only the beginning. By the following morning, Dan Ashworth had been mutual-consented out of the club: five months’ gardening leave followed by five months of actual work, a truly magnificent piece of living satire, even before you consider the compensation United had to pay Newcastle to secure him and the hefty payoff he must have received.

Much more here:

I’ve got some pre-match reading for you, starting with this piece by Tom Bassam about Pep Guardiola’s derby record.

Marcus Rashford has played in all 15 of Manchester United’s Premier League games this season but that run ends today: he and Alejandro Garnacho, with 22 league starts between them, have been left out of the matchday squad by Ruben Amorim.

The teams news is in, and the line-ups look like this:

Man City: Ederson, Walker, Dias, Gvardiol, Gundogan, Silva, Doku, De Bruyne, Foden, Matheus Nunes, Haaland. Subs: Ortega, Stones, Kovacic, Grealish, Savio, Simpson-Pusey, O’Reilly, McAtee, Mubama.
Man Utd: Onana, de Ligt, Maguire, Martinez, Mazraoui, Ugarte, Fernandes, Dalot, Diallo, Hojlund, Mount. Subs: Bayindir, Lindelof, Zirkzee, Malacia, Eriksen, Yoro, Casemiro, Antony, Mainoo.
Referee: Anthony Taylor.

Hello world!