Manchester City, dominant, shows how huge the gulf has become with United | Jonathan Wilson | Soccer

ISix weeks ago, at the golden age when Manchester United did not have a permanent manager, the derby seemed to be the biggest hurdle between Manchester City and retain the league title. History may continue to consider it as such: it is a derby, it is United; how could it not have been a night of furious passions and impossible tensions? And yet, at the time, once United's initial wave was over – there was at least some reaction to Everton's humiliation on Sunday – the overwhelming feeling was how much the gap between the two camps was. had widened.

It is now 11 consecutive wins in the league for City, a series of absurd regularity. United has been beaten, at least until the end, but as Roy Keane pointed out, this should be a prerequisite. The presence of a bit of fighting, however, only served to highlight the difference in quality, a difference highlighted by the way United left with three central defenders protected by three deep circles – and no one accused Ole Gunnar Solskjær of a useless ideological negativity. ; Breaking the party was the best way to get something out of the game.

Taking the players to The Cliff's training ground generated some sort of response, but that was not enough. The danger is that Solskjær concludes that he is not nostalgic enough. What next? A round of golf with Alex Stepney in Davyhulme? Ask Bryan Robson to take the guys to a bender all day at Pat Crerand's pub?

When Solskjær started talking about the values ​​of the old, it was a smart rhetorical tool. Recover the old spirit, remind players of the privilege of playing for such a club, reconnect with disgruntled fans and try to bridge the divide between Loyalist Mourinho and those who watched what was going on. But that should have been a tool that allowed him to make a radical change under the pretext of restoring the glorious past. The worry is that Solskjær really believes this and thinks that all it takes for United to return to the top is the reimposition of Ferguson's values.

His refusal to use Ferguson's parking space is frankly a bit strange. It is a little worrisome to find Ferguson in a rocking chair in the guest room, while Solskjær butchers with gentle and bewildering ways are potential rivals for his affection in the shower. Provide your own taxidermy joke and spend his days organizing stuffed corpses of proud beasts.

And while Solskjær is trying to reconjurer 1999, the story that is being replayed is that of 30 years earlier and the chaos in which the club fell after the retirement of Matt Busby. The city, meanwhile, seems to be able to free itself from its past. Nobody talks more about Cityitis, the disease diagnosed by Joe Royle.

The difference between the clubs is summed up by the fact that City has had five manager winners but has won the league only five times, while United has had only three winners of the title but has won 20 times . United Way is made up of very powerful leaders who achieve great success but whose reigns are followed by long periods in the desert (respectively 41, 26 and six years to date); the way of the city is of a persistent inconsistency.

Pep Guardiola has a tendency to reject what happened to City before the takeover of Sheikh Mansour, which is perhaps a bit unfair on Frank Swift and Alec Herd, on Colin Bell and Tony Book, but is equally understandable. Whether or not he becomes the first city coach to retain the league title, which he wins five titles in six years, City is now a different club.

This is what happens when you take huge sums of money – and for the moment, ignore the source concerns and whether this money has been spent under UEFA regulations – and use it to review all the infrastructure and values ​​of a club. Long before his arrival, City had been built on the principles of Guardiola. This type of coherence, this relentless pursuit of the title, is what a holistic approach can bring, with each department following the same basic philosophy for the same purpose.

The mishmash of a United team has been refreshed, jumping them between managers of different types and approaches, a leaking roof, is what happens when decisions are made by people having a poor knowledge of football, naming famous names almost randomly stumble upon a messiah, while doing nothing to improve the infrastructure. Solskjær could ask the entire team to sit down and watch the X-Files with a bottle of Two Dogs while worrying about the millennium virus, but reliving the 90's will not solve the fundamental lack of long planning United term.

City shows the way, shows what planned investments can achieve – and that is why, for the first time since perhaps for the 30s, it is they who are definitely the dominant force in Manchester.