In the month of July in 2009, the most successful team manager for Manchester United spoke to the reports that Manchester is a city and they are nothing but a rather small club with a rather constricted mentality. 

This came after the popular advertising board by Carlos Tevez was erected in the city centre of Manchester with “Welcome to Manchester” embedded on the same. Tevez had decided to swap Old Trafford in exchange for the Etihad in the summer, which was just 3 months post his 2nd successive match with the United for the Premier League. 

Manchester United is currently running the winning streak by 9/4 for the Premier League football betting for the 3rd time in a total of four years. However, right when this move was implemented, they had managed to finish their 10th in the first season after the playoff against the Abu Dhabi United Group, which was led by the politician Sheikh Mansour. This marked the dramatic takeover for the club. 

However, the Argentine team was now arriving at the early phases at the club by shaking up its establishment. And there was no better place to initiate the ruffling of feathers than against the cross-city rivals that are no doubt one among the successful football clubs in the world. 

Now, this particular episode wasn’t actually forgotten or obliterated by Ferguson, who failed to resist to take a dig right back after the dramatic Manchester United win at derby by 4-3 in the month of September at Old Trafford.

As per Ferguson, at times, one has to deal with noisy neighbours. You surely cannot handle it, yet you have to deal with it anyhow. One needs to get going with life, put the television on & turn up the volume to tune out those noises. 

However, regardless of what Ferguson said publicly, he happened to realise that the City, which was now powered by the new owners, could surely be dubbed a threat. As per Simon Bajkowski, what Ferguson did recognise with the City in the very beginning was the fact that there was surely a potential to bother the United through steep performance. 

This was unveiled by Simon Bajkowski, a reporter for the popular Manchester Evening News who had been following up on the stories for Manchester City for the past seven years. Fergie sure was making his own set of cards to work up a good game against the City. Something serious surely was being worked up, and the United needed to pay proper attention to this. 

Between the years 2000 & 2009, Richard Dunne had appeared more than 350 times & even served as the captain of the club in the initial season under new ownership. This change in direction required some time to get used to post his previous 8 seasons that involved 1 relegation, 1 promotion, as well as 3 finishes in the bottom half of this Premier League. 

As per Dunne in this interview, this just shifted from the spectrum’s one end going to another. With this shift, the high-quality players that made the Team Manchester City helped with a significant improvement while taking the crown as the stronger and bigger side. 

With this change, they attained a particularly different level as well as standard altogether. Now, the vision of the Brazil International & 2-time winner of La Liga, Robinho managing to pull on a good blow to the deep blue sky surely made one feel like someone had for long been cheating in real life on the Football manager. 

While this particular deal wasn’t actually enough to get the City the tag of an elite city club just overnight, the inflow of good-quality players that came into the scene in 2010 with Yaya Toure and David Silva along with Sergio Aguero happening a year after that, sure changed the relationship held by the Manchester City derby. 

Dunne further added, mentioning the fact that the game meant a lot for the City fans when he used to play. For the team, it was no doubt the year’s biggest game yet. Manchester United has been competing with Liverpool, Chelsea, as well as Arsenal to bag the trophy for the esteemed Premier League. And in this scenario, Manchester City worked as just another match to ace. 

However, the shift in events made this game the title decider by a close margin. Now, it wasn’t a derby anymore. It meant so much to the city, but not as much to the United. As a fan of City, one might have feared that the derby would follow suit with the thinking retained from the previous years, assuming that the team would get hammered here. However, the results were not what one would have expected.