Why Man City are fired up to end their Old Trafford hoodoo: Squad unity, the star duo drumming standards into newcomers and the missing ingredient players say Enzo Maresca has added ahead of Man United clash

Ayyoub Bouaddi has done his homework. He looks a little bit bookish, so that stands to reason.

Aside from naming no fewer than four Manchester City midfielders – Messrs Toure, De Bruyne, Gundogan and Rodri – when asked for a Premier League idol growing up, the 18-year-old born just north of Paris studiously learned his lines on this weekend’s derby.

‘The most important game of the year,’ Bouaddi said softly but deliberately. ‘It means a lot for the fans and for us. We will give everything for this game.’

Watching the togetherness of City’s squad in recent weeks, particularly in Porto’s white-hot cauldron of aggravation on Tuesday, it feels like a hop across town to Manchester United is exactly what they crave. To roll on to the next big event, riding a wave.

Erling Haaland and Gianluigi Donnarumma, two deputies of captain Ruben Dias, are said to be drumming in the standards of the club to the new signings in the hope they can integrate quickly. Haaland is becoming more vocal and has started this season boisterously.

And listening to Bouaddi, the recent recruits have clearly taken heed.

Sunday’s derby probably comes a touch too soon in the reign of Enzo Maresca to draw any real conclusions on the ultimate direction of the team this season but it is an opportunity to lay down a marker that the status quo up here is not changing just because the messiah took his leave into the Catalonian sunset.

In fact, there is definitely something for the Italian to improve upon – and it is not often we will be able to say that when comparing to the Guardiola era. The record at Old Trafford is patchy at best. 

Of the stadiums that City have visited more than once over the last seven campaigns, they’ve only fared worse at Tottenham. It’s an average of a point a game in north London – four defeats, two wins, one draw. 

Only marginally better is the 1.14 points-per-game at United. Exactly the same number as Anfield, even though the fortunes of those two clubs have been worlds apart.

Two wins, two draws and three defeats since 2019 simply does not tally with City’s supremacy over their crosstown rivals. They haven’t scored a goal there since 2023, were wretched amid a defensive injury crisis in January – Michael Carrick’s first game in caretaker charge – and both sides were frankly horrible in a dour goalless draw the year before.

There has been acrimony over refereeing calls, not least the infamous Marcus Rashford non-offside that tipped the scales of a game in City’s Treble-winning year. Haaland once kicked into gear in this fixture too. But the overriding feeling is that City rarely do themselves justice four miles away near Salford Quays.

When losing (in 2020, 2023 and 2026), City had all of the ball. Not a fair chunk, pretty much all of it. An average of 70 per cent – but they were eventually picked off by a team adept at counter-attacking rather than taking ownership of proceedings. 

A mixture of doing little with possession, too pedestrian and risk averse, and then missing key defenders has generally done for them. 

Remarkably, John Stones was injured for all three defeats. Ruben Dias missed the last two and in 2020, the absence of Aymeric Laporte was acutely felt. 

That cocktail produces a sour taste and it is a strange quirk that the Emirates and Stamford Bridge are eminently happier hunting grounds for City. 

The anaemic displays at Old Trafford almost mirror the diminishing lustre of this fixture and on Thursday, it was a decade to the day since Guardiola travelled to meet Jose Mourinho’s United for the very first time and Manchester took its place as the epicentre of the world game. 

The anticipation ahead of that meeting has not been matched anywhere in the intervening years.

Maybe there is a responsibility on the current incumbents to bring back some vigour. Not off the pitch, not the media barbs, because neither appear interested in those, but in the style of the show, a blood-and-thunder that once was a prerequisite.

Carrick is unlikely to be able to engineer that this time, given United’s start to the season. Maresca, though, possesses a chance to continue the feeling of building a team in his image, to piggyback on the sense of achievement from Porto.      

The little brawl in the tunnel will not have done them any harm at all in that respect. The way they defend will offer spaces for the likes of Bruno Fernandes to exploit but City are also creating heaps of chances.

‘He (Maresca) has brought so much energy,’ said Matheus Nunes. ‘I feel like there is a new energy around. I think we needed that. 

‘He came with a lot of enthusiasm, he knows the standards of the club as he was here before and won everything. He’s got everything he needs to succeed, and I hope this season shows it.’

That has transmitted to the players. It is self-evident in the way they have talked and behaved over the first month. Most of them are looking for a first win at United and those sort of firsts can galvanise the older guard. 

City go to their old foes with the fire to change the record.