Another visit of a fierce rival and another terrible Manchester United performance.
Much like against Liverpool less than two weeks' prior, United suffered from terrible performances from the majority of their players, going down 2-0 at home to put Ole Gunnar Solskjaer further under pressure.
But United's problem began before kick-off, with Solskjaer setting his team up for failure with his chosen line-up.
Lining up with a questionable backline, and the usual suspects in midfield, United’s front two of Mason Greenwood and Cristiano Ronaldo left a lot to the imagination.
Both Greenwood and Ronaldo are notorious for their lack of pressing, so lining them up against a Man City defence, who are arguably the best in the world at building from the back, made no sense from a fans' perspective.
Even though Solskjaer did try and rectify the situation in the second half, bringing on the likes of Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho, it was too little too late with the visitors already being 2-0 up and cruising.
Of course, it was going to be a struggle with Edinson Cavani out with an injury, but when the likes of Rashford, Sancho, Jesse Lingard and Donny van de Beek sit on the bench - all of who are great pressers in their own right - United were set up to fail from minute one.
The use of a back three does change the way the forwards are set up, but when two of the three show a lack of urgency with their pressing, City will be able to take advantage with ease.
Even though the back three has been welcome over the past few weeks, the formation doesn’t work the way it's planned if the team doesn't defend as a unit, which we saw today. The lack of forward pressing creates a chain of bad positioning due to the player behind having to step up to cover, then the next player has to, and so on.
United look lost going forward as well. Even though the pressing was shambolic until the likes of Rashford and Sancho came on, their creativity and execution was also lacking from what you expect from Manchester United.
The poor positioning from Fernandes, who was effectively playing as another striker, as well as Greenwood and Ronaldo not being playmakers, hindered United extremely. Luke Shaw has never been comfortable as a wing-back in a back three it seems, and with Fernandes being one of the highest players up the pitch, the creativity in the team is dead.
Fred and Scott McTominay did a good job defending, winning the ball back and constantly harassing, but when they did win the ball back they had no close playmaker available to lay the ball off to.
Fernandes has seen himself pushed further and further forward during his United career. Originally as a traditional No.10 at Sporting while also being an incredible presser, the Portuguese playmaker is starting to move further away from the ball and not doing his job of tying the midfield and attack together.
In a game against Man City, Solskjaer normally adopts a very defensive approach and hits on the counter. Fernandes will normally receive the ball quite deep and spray it towards the fast forwards. But now positioned in the same area as those forwards, there wasn't anyone available to release the counter.
Solskjaer will need to go back to the drawing board after another embarrassing defeat against a local rival. But the system set up today, especially the forward line who weren’t positioned in the right spots to increase creativity, while also not having the mentality to press and cover every single blade of grass, is behind this United loss.
Maybe it's time for a different system change at United, and maybe see the likes of Sancho integrated.
What did you think of the system used in the Manchester derby? Follow our United On My Mind Editor Mike Parrott on Twitter to get involved in the discussion and give us your thoughts in the comment section below.
