Three things we learnt from the Manchester derby as Mourinho fails to get early bragging rights over Guardiola

Manchester City secures a vital win in Pep Guardiola’s first Manchester derby, with a 2-1 win against Manchester United at Old Trafford.

Despite a poor first half from Jose Mourinho’s side, the Red Devils were much better in the second half, but in the end Manchester City deserved the win.

With the Europa League campaign starting next week, Mourinho will surely make a few changes to the first team after his tactics and selections were caught out by a dominant first half show from the noisy neighbours.

4-3-3 is the way forward

Mourinho has used the 4-3-3 system during his time at Real Madrid and Chelsea, but looks to be staying with the 4-2-3-1 set up mainly for Wayne Rooney, due to the lone striker position covered by Zlatan Ibrahimovic and the manager confirming the captain will not be used in a deep role in midfield.

Going into the second half, Mourinho decided to move to a 4-3-3, which helped the side gain more possession of the ball and create more chances, although, Rooney was pushed out as a right-winger. The system would help get the best out of the key players like Paul Pogba and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, which wasn’t shown today but will be much evident in the future.

Dropping Rooney looks to be the obvious way the side can progress - the 30-year-old created one extra chance and completed four more passes than Ander Herrera who came on as a substitute at half-time.

Lingard and Mkhitaryan were not ready

There were no excuses for the first half performances from Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Jessie Lingard, both individuals were rightly taken off at half-time. They only managed to complete 24 passes in total, simply not good enough, when the side were expecting the wingers to be at their best.

The selection of Lingard and Mkhitaryan proved costly for Mourinho, as United succumbed to a 2-1 defeat. Before the derby, Lingard didn’t appear in a single game since the Community Shield fixture and Mkhitaryan had just got back from a knee injury whilst representing his country.

Once Marcus Rashford made his appearance from the bench, he took the game to City’s defence and was the go to player when the Red Devils were about to go on a counter-attack. During Mourinho’s time at Real Madrid, his success was built around counter-attacks and it would pay off with the attacking force they had, it wouldn’t be a surprise if he starts to make these changes in the big games.

Guardiola is taking this City side to another level

Whilst Mourinho is still working out how to get the best out of the United squad, Guardiola’s work is evidently working well and is taking Manchester City to the next level. Critics were expecting the Spaniard to start his era in Manchester slowly, adapting to the English league and installing his philosophy into an ageing squad, but he has certainly proved them all wrong.

Guardiola has shown his side don’t need to rely on Sergio Aguero throughout the season, with the Argentine missing the Manchester derby because of a three match suspension. The former Barcelona manager would have expected his side to put the game to bed on numerous occasions in the first half, but will mainly be happy with the three points.

With most of the Manchester City attack coming from the left side of the team, Nolito and Kevin De Bruyne will be expected to play a key role for Guardiola this campaign. Nolito staying towards the touch line and tracking back to help his side, provides De Bruyne the license to roam around the Manchester United defence.