Following Haaland’s shocking mistake, Foden leads Man City’s comeback for a 3-1 derby victory against Man United.

In a one-sided derby that revealed the division between the two Premier League rivals on Sunday, Manchester City defeated Manchester United 3-1 thanks to a late comeback spearheaded by Phil Foden after an incredible error by Erling Haaland.
Marcus Rashford’s rasping long-range goal in the eighth minute and the prolific Haaland’s shocking error from just two meters away put City under 1-0 at the interval.

When Foden hit a soaring drive for the equalizer in the 56th minute and then swept in a low shot off Julian Alvarez’s inside cross in the 80th, he succeeded where Haaland had previously failed.
“I always thought he would find the net. With his two goals this season, Foden, an England striker, has now scored 17 goals in all competitions, a career high, according to City boss Pep Guardiola.
“No one has been as decisive for us as him this season… he is the player of the season.”
Haaland still had time to make up for his mistake, using City’s 27th shot of the game to score the third goal in stoppage time after a defensive blunder.
After celebrating with Foden after his goal, which was his league-high 18th of the season, Haaland fell to the ground in fake relief. The two damaged their opponents once again after scoring hat tricks in City’s 6-3 victory over United the previous season.
With 11 games remaining in a championship competition that seems to be racing to the wire, second-place City dropped one point behind Liverpool. The difference between the three leading candidates for the championship would once again be two points if Arsenal defeats Sheffield United on Monday as predicted.
In the meanwhile, United has fallen behind in the race to qualify for the Champions League. After Saturday’s victories by fifth-place Tottenham and fourth-place Aston Villa, United is currently six points behind Spurs and eleven behind Villa.
The match’s lopsided outcome demonstrated that Jim Ratcliffe, whose Ineos business assumed control of United’s football operations upon the billionaire’s entrance as a co-owner, would have his work cut out for him in terms of getting the team back to being a major player in the English and European leagues.
Last week, he discussed shoving City and Liverpool “off their perch” within three years. With this information, that could be too optimistic.
At Etihad Stadium, United was outclassed, with the most of the encounter taking place in the visitors’ half like an FA Cup between a premier league club and a lower-division rival. United just managed one shot on goal, which went to Rashford, while City controlled 74% of the play overall.
However, until Foden’s outstanding first goal, United had a chance to hold out. Even that goal, however, was controversial since United boss Erik ten Hag was upset that Kyle Walker didn’t get called for a foul on Rashford before City scored the equalizer.
Ten Hag said, “It was maybe soft, but there was contact.”
Foden was firing away quickly after Ten Hag flung his water bottle on the ground, sending it sailing past Andre Onana.
Two weeks after City was defeated 1–1 at home by Chelsea, another draw would have dealt a fatal blow to the team’s hopes of winning a historic fourth consecutive league championship, but Foden and, rather belatedly, Haaland made sure that wouldn’t happen.
Therefore, City will be playing a seismic encounter at Anfield on Sunday with the potential to deal a major blow to Liverpool in the championship chase and to be right on their heels. Since suffering a 1-0 defeat at Villa on December 6, City has gone 19 games without a loss in all competitions.
Ratcliffe begins work on a massive reconstruction project, and in its present form, United can only dream of such a record.
Onana’s performance, which repulsed City with a string of superb saves in the second half and left little chance to stop Foden’s breakthrough, was one thing that United could be happy about.
The other was the caliber of Rashford’s goal, a thunderbolt from thirty meters after Bruno Fernandes was let past City’s defense by Onana’s long clearance.
But after then, it was just one-way traffic, and United was unable to stop the blue wave.

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