Manchester City won the first Manchester derby of the season 2-1 as Kevin De Bruyne scored a goal and assisted another at Old Trafford on Saturday. Manchester United had a slow opening to the match as their cross-town rivals started with a flourish, pumping two goals in just over 30 minutes to leave the home team shell-shocked. The hosts pulled one back at the stroke of half-time via Zlatan Ibrahimovic, but were unable to break a resolute City defence in the second half despite a much improved showing in the second half.
It was sloppy play from United in the first half, as Kevin De Bruyne profited from the poor decision-making of, first, Eric Bailly and, then, Daley Blind. The Belgian raced through on goal in the 15th minute to coolly slot the ball beyond David De Gea and put Manchester City into the lead.
It was De Bruyne who was instrumental in City's second as well just after the half-hour mark. United were caught napping as City's No. 10 swung in a shot from the right side of the box and the ball hit United's left-hand post, before bouncing out to teenage debutant Kelechi Iheanacho, who made no mistake in putting the rebound away.
United snatched one back three minutes from half-time as new City stopper Claudio Bravo spilled a routine Rooney free-kick on his debut for the Sky Blues. The ball fell out to Zlatan Ibrahimovic who, with Bravo off his line, made no mistake in volleying the ball home to make it 1-2.
With United behind at half-time, manager Mourinho brought Marcus Rashford and Ander Herrera in for a struggling Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Jesse Lingard to add some attacking impetus into the team in the second half. United controlled most of the last 45 minutes, but were unable to force a way through as De Bruyne almost made it 3-1 from substitute Leroy Sane's pass. The match ended 2-1 to City as the blue half of Manchester laid down a marker for their neighbours to catch up to. City thus made it four wins out of as many matches, while United dropped their first points of the season.
