Manchester City vs Manchester United: Kevin De Bruyne could be the difference in Old Trafford derby

FANS' VIEW: Supporters of the sides involved at Old Trafford this weekend offer their thoughts

Staff
Friday 23 October 2015 15:48 BST
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(2015 Getty Images)

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Ahead of the Premier League meeting between Manchester United and Manchester City at Old Trafford this weekend, we caught up with a couple of fans for their take on the match...

Manchester United fan - Matt Gault

We may have beaten City 4-2 in April, but Manuel Pellegrini has his side playing some exhilarating attacking football recently. They're missing Aguero and Silva, but Sterling and Bony are still big threats. Our defence has struggled with powerful, physical forwards this season and Bony could unnerve Smalling or Jones in a similar way. It will be interesting to see if Marcos Rojo starts because he looked shaky against CSKA during the week.

There's a good chance there will be a few weary legs after a lengthy trip back from Russia, so I'd expect LvG to shuffle his pack a bit and maybe reinstate Mata and Memphis. Darmian should start at right-back once again and hopefully he can stop Sterling, who has been in a rich vein of form. Of course, one of the crucial things for us is to stop the creativity of De Bruyne, so whoever starts in the middle will need to be ultra-vigilant in stopping the Belgian from pulling the strings.

Overall, this is going to be an extremely difficult derby day and I fear that City will have just too much firepower for us to cope. A point would be a very good result indeed, but I think it'll finish 2-1 to City.

Manchester City fan - Nick Savage

Don't hate me City fans, but I don't have a great feeling about this one.

To elaborate, City are not a one man team. We're normally a four-man team - Yaya, Silva, Kompany and Aguero. Kun and Silva won't play and Vinnie is not match fit. To play the big games against the big teams, we normally need all of them to be on fire. Thank the heavens though, that Sheikh Mansour brought us Kevin de Bruyne; he could be the difference.

Although we earned a great result against Sevilla and United were off the pace against CSKA, Champions League form has no bearing on Derbies. The Bony/Sterling partnership looked promising against Bournemouth, but Bony seemed stifled vs Sevilla. I can't see him causing too much trouble to the in form Smalling.

City will win this game if we keep possession and take our chances. Stating the obvious, I know, but I think we might lack a bit of punch and I'm gonna call this a 1-1 draw.

Manchester United v Manchester City - Premier League preview

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