If at some point on Sunday morning you had told Erik ten Hag that his side would score three times at the Etihad and come close to an even share of possession with Manchester City, he might have fancied his chances of getting a result. He certainly would not have expected to be 4-0 down at half-time, to concede hat-tricks to two different players or for Manchester United to quite simply be “hammered”, which was his choice of word to describe this 6-3 defeat.
Even the late consolations from Anthony Martial and those spells of largely innocuous possession came only when the 188th Manchester derby was over as anything approaching a contest, long after Erling Haaland had scored his obligatory three goals. At 6-1, with 15 minutes left to play, the sight of Pep Guardiola making a quadruple substitution – which involved replacing three of City’s best players in Phil Foden, Kevin De Bruyne and Jack Grealish – was like something out of a testimonial.
