Manchester City v Manchester United- live

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Manchester City 0-2 Manchester United (kick-off 13:30)

42 min Barry! Oh, that was a good chance! A chance out of nothing for City - a quick throw on the right to David Silva, who played it to Balotelli in the area, who laid it off to Barry about 20 yards out. He had time, decided to pass it into the net and got it all wrong.

41 min Yaya Toure is bustled off the ball. Yaya Toure. City look out of this at the moment. Van Persie tries to turn inside Zabaleta and gets a shot away. It's deflected through to Hart.

39 min Young clattered by Zabaleta on the edge of his own area. How have we still not seen a booking? The current fad for referees in big matches is to leave the notebook in the pocket in the early stages. Recall the last World Cup final for an example of how that turned out.

38 min Nothing comes out of the City corner. After a shaky first few minutes, Ferdinand has done a really good job in defence.

37 min City win a corner. A goal before half-time would be even more crucial than usual. More from Paul Hayward, meanwhile.

Twitter: Paul Hayward - Kolo Toure has hyped himself into a frenzy. Blasted a pointless long-range shot into the stands and just took out Van Persie. Mancini livid.

35 min United are playing some very, very good football at the moment. Valencia with his foot on the ball, almost taunting City with it. He waits for Rafael to make the decoy run outside him and then dinks it to Van Persie. Back to Valencia. Back to Van Persie. Who's offside.

34 min Silva with a City free-kick from the right. De Gea catches with ease.

32 min Valencia gets past Clichy again on the right. United are really hurting City down the flanks. Nastasic has to be at full stretch to clear his cross before Rooney gets there. Cleverley with the follow-up from 25 yards. It's well over the bar.

31 min The Etihad is in a sort of shivering trauma. They're not quite able to articulate what they're seeing. City look pretty stunned as well. I fancy we may see some changes at half-time.

29 min GOAL! Manchester City 0-2 Manchester United (Rooney) We want six! Rooney again after an incisive United break! The cross comes in from the right, Rooney steals half a yard on Kolo Toure, and tucks the ball past Hart from six yards!

27 min Nasri twists and turns and crosses. Headed away to Kolo Toure, who decides to go for the 30-yard volley? And why not? It's a nice souvenir for one lucky fan in the back row.

26 min In to the near post, where Carrick can't get the right contact on the glancing header. If you're gong to play it to the near post, wouldn't you want someone there who can actually do a glancing header? It comes out to Van Persie, who tries to shoot from an impossible angle, and sees it blocked.

25 min Valencia's managing to find some space too. He wins a corner on the United right off Clichy. Evans, who's stayed on and looks about as OK as Jonny Evans ever looks, trots into the penalty area.

23 min Aguero! So nearly brilliant! He practically dribbled through the entire United defence there - one or two lucky deflections, but audacity like that deserves the odd sprinkling of grace to it. Having done the hard bit, he found himself eight yards out, with only De Gea to beat. He tried to place it, and the goalkeeper could tip it behind for a corner.

22 min The last two or three minutes have been all United. Young again on the left in space. Van Persie crosses, looking for Rooney. Headed away by Nastastic.

21 min Kolo Toure. Why not Lescott? What is Mancini's big problem with Lescott?

19 min Meanwhile, there's an injury in the City defence too. Kolo Toure is preparing to come on for Vincent Kompany. This would be a huge blow for City. Meanwhile, Young gets space again on the left and tries to square it for Van Persie. Barry cuts it out.

18 min Henry Winter brings news of an injury in United's defence.

Twitter: Henry Winter - Totally against the run of play, #mufc lead through Rooney after breakaway. btw Smalling warming up as concern over Evans

16 min GOAL! Manchester City 0-1 Manchester United (Rooney) Out of absolutely nothing! Joe Hart's first touch is to pick the ball out of his own net after a marvellous piece of deception by Rooney! United broke with Young, who played the ball inside to Rooney. Rooney glided the ball across the edge of the penalty area before trickling a low, weak shot back towards the left corner. It was going so slowly it barely looked a threat, but Hart was completely wrong footed, and could do nothing to stop the ball rolling meekly in. That's an astonishing turn of events. United lead.

15 min Aguero! Heavy touch! Put through by Balotelli, and he's outsprinted Evans, but can't bring the ball under control, else he'd have been through.

13 min Yaya Toure ghosts past Carrick - pretty limp attempt at a tackle, that - and releases Balotelli on the right. Balotelli tries to nutmeg Evans, who keeps his legs together and wins the ball. Balotelli tries to win it back by going to ground and swiping at Evans from behind. He, too, is fortunate to escape a yellow card.

12 min Aguero takes on two men on the City right and wins a corner. De Gea comes for the corner, catches, fumbles, and catches again.

11 min Clichy bursts down the left, manages to hook a cross in, and Balotelli volleys it miles over the bar with De Gea in no-man's land. First real chance for either side. Possession stats: City 76%-24% United

10 min City are definitely going with the long ball as a tactic in this early stages. Zabaleta hoists it long for Balotelli. Headed away by Evans.

8 min United have hardly managed to cross the halfway line so far. City playing the more precise stuff. Yaya lifts it into the area looking for Aguero. Headed away by Ferdinand. Nasri gathers it. Evra tackles. United are firefighting.

6 min Balotelli takes the corner. Van Persie heads it away at the near post.

5 min Kompany lunges in on Valencia, and then Ferdinand slides in dangerously on Aguero. Some real tackles flying in, and some angry words being exchanged too. Free-kick for City about 25 yards out. Balotelli takes it, and De Gea pushes it behind at his near post. Corner.

3 min Rooney with two fouls in quick succession! First a little nip on Silva, followed by a very late lunge on Yaya Toure. Martin Atkinson takes Rooney to one side and tells him not to be silly, or he really will get a talking to. Either of those fouls could have seen yellow on their own. Rooney escapes.

2 min Gorkhn Singh flagrantly defies the pun amnesty with this effort:

The Maverick Mancini's love-hate relationship with Mr unreliable Super-Mario Balotelli will be truly tested today... Either Balotelli will unleash all the shackles and unleash the glimpses of brilliance that were on show the last time these two teams met, although if the more experienced members do not protect Balotelli quickly enough, City's title hopes could go up in smoke quicker than a firework in Balotelli's bathroom. P.S. Most under-rated derby is WBA v Wolves.

If that was parody, it was very good. If not, leave and never return.

1 min Aguero's down after a tackle from Evans. He's stayed down. Now he's got up. No free-kick.

13.30 Enough of this nonsense. Let's have some football.

13.25 Sky's Geoff Shreeves conducts a bizarre interview with Cruise and Duvall in the tunnel. Cruise reveals he's been following English football since the 1980s. Duvall says his favourite player was Wee Jimmy Johnstone, before asking whether there will be penalties afterwards if it's a draw. I know I started this live blog with a pack of lies, but all that genuinely happened.

And look, I didn't even make the joke about Geoff Shreeves breaking the bad news about Tom Cruise's divorce. You would have laughed, but it would have been Pavlovian. I want more.

13.21 "What's the fifth thing in the credo for today?" asks Alison Ramage. Aha. Ahahaha. Ahahahahaha.

13.20 Paul Hayward is also at the Etihad this afternoon:

Twitter: Paul Hayward - David de Gea is expected to get a run of games in goal for Man Utd. Goalkeeping jersey his to lose after the defensive debacle at Reading.

13.15 For some reason probably related to the generation of cash money, Tom Cruise is at the Etihad Stadium today. This photograph comes courtesy of Chris Bailey, who works for the Manchester City website. Can we just get all the Tom Cruise puns out of the way before we start? This is, I assure you, the definitive list.

'It's Mission Impossible now for United' 'Jonny Evans had his Eyes Wide Shut at that corner' 'Still raining at the Etihad, but no Days of Thunder just yet, or a Vanilla Sky' 'City just need A Few Good Men to stand up and be counted' 'Back pass to De Gea, and that's Risky Business' 'Kagawa still injured. He's been The Lost Samurai since joining United.' 'People will say the title race is over, but that's very much a Minority Report' 'Mancini will be asking the owners to "show him the money" in January'

Robert Duvall is here too. Feel free to make puns about him.

12.55 Henry Winter is in place at the Etihad, and he begins by reading the programme.

Twitter: Henry Winter - Mancini in good neighbourly mood, welcoming #mufc 'a great team' & Ferguson 'the most successful manager in the history of British football'

12.50 Lots will be made of Tevez getting 'dropped', or possibly even 'snubbed', by Roberto Mancini. Balotelli's inclusion is something of a surprise, not to say a gamble, but he's got pedigree in big games, not least the 6-1 last season. Besides, when you've got four strikers as good as Manchester City do, it's no more a 'snub' to Tevez than ordering beef carpaccio in a restaurant constitutes a 'snub' to the prawn cocktail.

12.40 Team news. Balotelli starts. Tevez doesn't. No Vidic for Manchester United.

Manchester City (4-2-3-1): Hart; Zabaleta, Kompany (c), Nastasic, Clichy; Yaya Toure, Barry; Silva, Aguero, Nasri; Balotelli. Subs: Pantilimon, Lescott, Maicon, Kolo Toure, Garcia, Tevez, Dzeko.

Manchester United (4-4-1-1): De Gea; Rafael, Evans, Ferdinand, Evra; Valencia, Carrick, Cleverley, Young; Rooney; Van Persie. Subs: Johnstone, Jones, Smalling, Giggs, Scholes, Hernandez, Welbeck.

12.30 It's a glorious sunny afternoon in Manchester, the perfect setting for the fiercest rivalry in English football, and certainly the biggest match of the season so far.

Can you spot the little white lie in that sentence?

In fact, there are three of them. That whole sentence is a seething nest of lies, a poisonous cocktail of mendacity. The biggest match of the season so far, strictly speaking, was probably El Clasico back in October. The fiercest rivalry in English football is probably a toss-up between West Ham v Millwall and West Brom v Wolves (if you've never been to one, you're going to have to trust me on this). And it's currently overcast in Manchester with a bit of drizzle. I mean, it's Manchester.

It's quite easy to get caught up in the furious meta-narrative of matches such as these, the hyper-significance of it all, an approach best described as the 'Five-Things-We-Learned' school. (Note, by the way, that things can only be learned in multiples of five.) Instead, can we all agree on the following as a sort of credo?

1) The Premier League title will not be decided today. 2) Both Manchester City and Manchester United will remain, regardless of the result today, very good football teams. 3) This game on its own will tell us little or nothing about any of the following things: the state of the modern game; when Alex Ferguson is going to retire; whether England will win the next World Cup; or whether football has, in fact, been ripped fully-formed out of the motherly arms of the working-class and dropped into the lap of the bourgeoisie. 4) None of the above actually makes this match any less worthy of our time and attention. It is, after all, a football match, and we quite like those.

With the terms of the encounter thus framed, let us begin.

Our own big two have had their say on United and City:

Whatever happens when the neighbours and rivals storm into each other this afternoon, United will be back again and again. It’s in their nature. When it comes to silverware, Ferguson’s men are hunters and gatherers, writes Henry Winter.

The end of that 44-year wait earned Mancini a new five-year contract, almost by default. But the consequence of City’s tame Champions League surrender is that he is now left needing to retain the Premier League title to be able to say the club are still progressing under his leadership, says Paul Hayward.

And a reminder, as if you needed it, of the two matches between these sides last season.

Here's a little preview.

Match Notes

Considering that last season's fixture at the Etihad Stadium was the 'biggest ever Manchester derby,' and City's 6-1 win at Old Trafford last October was arguably the most significant for half a century, Sunday's first meeting of the Premier League's top two has plenty to live up to.

City are finding it difficult to score, while United cannot keep the ball out of their own, but as the old cliché often reminds us, form goes out of the window on these occasions.

So expect fireworks. Insert Balotelli joke.

Betting: Home 5-4, Away, 15-8 Draw 5-2.

Stats of the game: As it stands, United lead the Premier League with 36 points from 15 games, three more than City – and 10 more than third-placed Chelsea in what is turning into a two-horse race.

At this stage last season it was the same top four – Spurs are fourth as they were then – but the only difference was that, after 15 games in 2001, City were top with 38 points, two more than United.

Interestingly, after 15 games last season, City had scored 49 goals and conceded 15. Now they have just 28 but have conceded 11. United, by contrast, had 35 goals then with 14 conceded.

Twelve months on and United have 37 goals – but they have also let in 21.

United have the upper hand at City in the Premier League with eight wins and two draws from 15 visits.

And the last six clashes have seen no more than one goal in the game, with United winning 1-0 three times, City winning by the same score twice and one 0-0 draw.

Mark Ogden’s prediction: Manchester City 1 Manchester United 1

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Manchester City v Manchester United- live

Last updated : 09 December 2012 By telegraph