Man United 0 Vs 5 Liverpool - Sir Alex Ferguson Comapres Loss to United's 6 - 1 Loss to City

Manchester United haven't learned anything from Man City's 6-1 thrashing, according to Sir Alex Ferguson's views. Have City's old rivals truly learned the lessons of their devastating derby day defeat ten years after their iconic Old Trafford triumph?


Despite the fact that Manchester City had just handed him his most humiliating defeat in his managerial career, Sir Alex Ferguson appeared surprisingly composed when speaking to Sky Sports after the game.

                           

"We should've just said 'we've had our day' when we were down 4-1," Ferguson recalled. "But we kept attacking, full-backs forward, and they were attacking with three against two. It was a wacky, wacky football game."


Ferguson was, of course, referring to Manchester United's 6-1 thrashing at the hands of Manchester City in October 2011. City actually led 3-1 as the game approached injury time, but as an ill-disciplined United went all-out to save the game, the Blues ruthlessly exploited the gaps in their defense.


"It's OK to dabble with history books, but there's a time and a place for common sense," Ferguson said.


The manager was referring to United's reputation for pulling off remarkable comebacks and refusing to back down from a challenge. Old Trafford regulars refer to it as "the United way."


No one can deny that this is true - the 1999 Champions League final is a prime example - but United, their players, and their managers have developed an inflated view of themselves as some kind of dominating force with a divine right to go all-out-attack whenever they want without consequence over the years.

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Ferguson, the excellent coach that he was (as a City fan, it pains to admit that, but it's true), mostly prevented United from being tripped up by a sense of self-importance. The 6-1 result was a rare case of egotism getting the better of them.


Fast forward to now, and it's evident that United haven't learned anything from Ferguson's remarks; in fact, they're undermining themselves more than ever. "Any Man United supporter knows anything can happen," Ole Gunnar Solskjaer remarked after his side's 3-2 comeback victory over Atalanta on Wednesday. It doesn't matter if it's Champions League or Premier League nights; we've done this before."


It's that kind of mentality that will keep City as Manchester's top dog for years to come.
City are astute under Guardiola. Yes, they always feel they can win, but when things aren't going their way, they don't go all out and throw bodies forward. The rarity of big defeats, the most recent of which being a 3-0 setback to Liverpool in 2018.

United is the Polar Opposite. 

City won the title in 2011/12 after defeating them 6-1, but the result had an even greater long-term impact on United's mindset. United has been more engrossed in their own narrative that they must aggressively attack and win than they have ever been since October 23, 2011.

                    

That approach has expressed itself in manager Solskjaer ten years later. He has no tactical plan or set style of play other than to hand the ball over to players like Marcus Rashford, Bruno Fernandes, and Cristiano Ronaldo in the hopes that they can create something out of nothing.


Solskjaer's club rarely exerts control over games or makes tactical tweaks to offset their opponents' strengths - after all, a team with a right to win doesn't have time to obsess about such minutiae. It's instructive that United's finest football comes when they're down a goal and can just throw everyone forward without worrying about tactics.


City ran riot in the final four minutes of the 6-1 victory because United believed they could - and should - always win.


You'd think a humiliating defeat would teach them a lesson, but evidently not. City exposed United's fundamental fault, their misplaced self-belief, by scoring three late goals, two from Edin Dzeko and one from David Silva.