Man City-Man Utd: the subplots behind Sunday’s derby

It’s easy to feel that City’s ship can be righted with relative ease.

“Without the injuries I don’t know what position we would be in, but I can imagine it,” Guardiola said. “I can’t prove it, but everyone thinks we would be a better team.”

The City boss also insists he has no regrets about signing a two-year extension last month after his team had just lost four consecutive games.

He said: “I couldn’t sleep, even worse than now, if I thought I was leaving when the club is in this situation. Impossible.

“They could fire me, that could happen. But to leave now, in this position? No chance.”

“There are many things we have to do; go on the market at the right time, maybe in winter or maybe the next, to make the team bigger, so that they compete with each other to improve the players.

“Nothing lasts forever. You have to be honest. If I lose and lose and lose, more and more, in the end I say, ‘Guys, you have to get someone else to fix this.'”

For United, the problems are much more complex. “We have many problems,” Amorim assesses. “They [City] “They are in a better place than us.”

United have been beaten on their last three visits to the Etihad Stadium and most neutrals will feel City have extra quality.

The city, however, is not without concerns. Guardiola’s old friend Txiki Begiristain will leave in the summer and will be replaced by Sporting technical director Hugo Viana, putting him in conflict with Amorim after years of working together.

More importantly, the end of their huge financial case is approaching, which has the potential to create uncertainty in negotiations with transfer targets, even if City continue to insist they have done nothing wrong.

In the short term, if United were to win the derby, City would be out of the top four.

United will remain in the bottom half whatever the result.

In terms of title, it is a practically irrelevant game compared to what came before. But given their respective wealth, illustrious pasts, and future uncertainties, that’s what makes them so attractive.