Manchester City won Manchester United in the city derby (1-3) played at Old Trafford, in the first leg of the League Cup semifinals in England thanks to goals from Bernardo Silva, Mahrez and Andreas Pereira , In own door. The City extended the streak for which it had managed to prevail in six of the last nine derbies of the city and swept the 'red devils' in Old Trafford by deciding the crash in a first part in which the team 'sky blue' deployed An overwhelming football.

Thus, Manchester City became the first team to score three goals in its neighbor's feud in the initial 45 minutes since Middlesbrough did it in 1997 and the only one to do so without fitting since Tottenham got it in October 1972.

Pep Guardiola arranged an asymmetrical system without a center forward in which only Rodri and Gundogan set their position, while Bernardo Silva, who opened the scoring with a spectacular shot to the squad, Riyah Mahrez, Kevin De Bruyne and Raheem Sterling moved all over the offensive front, attacked the vacant spaces and opened and closed their position thus blurring the lines of local defense.

The Algerian Mahrez, who was currently competing for the Best African Player of 2019 award with Mohamed Salah and the final winner, Sadio Mané, participated in his fifteenth goal of the season (6 scores and 9 assists) by transforming the second goal of the meeting, after overcoming the discussed David De Gea and scoring empty goal. The 'citizen' machinery continued to carbure at the same level despite the advantage, always with the ball controlled from the numerical and positional superiority (they signed 91% of success in the pass at the collective level during the first half), to which the laterals joined to give extra interior supports and neutralize the attempts of Fred, Andreas Pereira or the centrals to steal the ball.

Rashford keeps United alive

When Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's team tried to get closer to the Claudio Bravo area and tried to push closer to the 'sky blue' ball outlet, the City was also lethal to attack the spaces in transition. Thus the Guardiola team built a fantastic play at the first touch with several interventions that Kevin De Bruyne completed with a spectacular dribble with which he sat Phil Jones inside the area and that Andreas Pereira ended up being introduced into his own goal.

With the entrance of Nemanja Matic to the field in the second half, Manchester United was re-engaged in the fight for the center of the field and cut the differences thanks to Marcus Rashford's seventeenth goal in the season, his fourth against the club 'citizen' , at the pass of the young revelation Mason Greenwood . The City continued to generate goal situations that Sterling failed to make a wider difference for the interests of the visiting team, thus leaving the tie open for the 'red' interests, which will try to trace the difference at Etihad Stadium next 29 from January.

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