“Sometimes, you have a noisy neighbor. You cannot do anything about that. They will always be noisy. You just have to get on with your life, put your television on and turn it up a bit louder.”
Oh, how times have changed since that nowinfamous quote from Sir Alex Ferguson in 2009 following Sheikh Mansour’s takeover of Manchester City, which pumped millions of dollars from the United Arab Emirates into Manchester United’s crosstown rivals.
In the decade since, Ferguson’s 20-plus-year reign as United’s manager ended while City took over as Manchester’s top club. City won its first Premier League trophy in 2012, and while Ferguson reclaimed the title before his retirement in 2013, the Blues would go on to win three more titles in the decade, compared to United’s zero. But, for the first time since the days of Ferguson, this season United managed to complete the league double over City after a 2–0 win at Old Trafford this past weekend.
It’s been a trying few years for United fans seeing first City, and then arch-rival Liverpool, climb to the peak of the soccer world. In the time since Ferguson’s departure, even top managers like Louis van Gaal and José Mourinho have struggled to bring United back to anywhere near the heights it reached under Sir Alex. And while Ole Gunnar Solskjaer doesn’t have his team playing as well as the United sides of old, there is a vibrancy and togetherness about this squad that clearly hasn’t been there in the past.
And, unlike his predecessors, Solskjaer’s United seems to have the better of Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola for whatever reason. It’s his third win in all competitions against the Spaniard this season, making Ole just the second manager to ever beat Pep three times in a year.
A lot of that is down to the work Solskjaer has done in the transfer window. I touched on this last month, but he has done a great job of getting rid of the deadwood at the club while hitting on all his signings. None, perhaps, more so that Bruno Fernandes, The Portuguese midfielder, who arrived from Sporting Lisbon this past winter, has been exactly what this United side needed.
Fernandes not only sees things that most United midfielders don’t, but also has the ability to act on that vision. Take United’s first goal in the derby over the weekend, where Fernandes had both the ingenuity and the ability to pick out Anthony Martial off a free-kick with a delightful chip that the Frenchman converted for the lead. He’s a workhorse, too, almost always pressing the opponent when he’s on the ball.
Much like Virgil van Dijk’s arrival at Liverpool in January 2018, which propelled them to a Champions League final later that year and laid the foundation for the team’s superb past two seasons, Fernandes’ addition could be crucial to United’s hopes of reclaiming that Premier League crown from its noisy neighbors. After the win this past weekend, United showed that it may not be as far away as people think.
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