EPA Images/Peter Powell
With the Manchester derby falling on only the fourth matchday of the season, it was always going to be an unforgiving affair as far as summer signings were concerned. Despite, in some cases, having barely been in Manchester for more than a few weeks, the newest recruits at Old Trafford and the Etihad were faced with one of the biggest games in the Premier League. Considering that they had spent the last fortnight on international duty, most of them were still unfamiliar with their teammates. The derby was the ultimate baptism of fire and, unsurprisingly, quite a few of them got horribly, horribly burned.
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While City drew first blood in this season's vicious battle for the title, they also suffered the most high-profile casualty of the match. Having usurped Joe Hart in the City goal, Claudio Bravo was under serious scrutiny, and ultimately wilted under the white-hot glare. Not only was he directly responsible for United's goal, flapping a simple cross into the path of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, he was also lucky not to see red for a brutal, studs-up lunge on Wayne Rooney. That led many people to call for Joe Hart's return, before he rewarded their faith in him by making a massive fuck up for Torino.READ MORE: The High Costa Living – Reviewing Chelsea vs. Swansea
On the other side of the derby divide, Paul Pogba and Henrikh Mkhitaryan came in for scorching criticism for their performances. While Pogba was more anonymous than everyone's favourite group of hacktivists, Mkhitaryan could at least point to mitigating circumstances having picked up a thigh injury on international duty. Questions will inevitably asked as to why Jose Mourinho chose to throw an injured player into the mix, though that will at least distract from questions as to why he thought it was a good idea to start Jesse Lingard.Rah so this was the Bravo challenge on Rooney, facckkk pic.twitter.com/Anjawiq9Js
— Flavs (@FlavsNB) September 10, 2016
In the clash of great managerial minds, Mourinho was bested in chastening fashion by Pep Guardiola. Much like his players, Mourinho's derby debut featured more than its fair share of hard knocks. He's reacted to that in his usual conciliatory fashion by claiming that, had there been rolling substitutions like in basketball, he would have brought Mkhitaryan and Lingard off "after 20 minutes." Say what you like about Jose, he knows how to soothe those bruised egos.