Tomorrow sees the biggest game of the Premier League season so far – the Manchester Derby – as Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola renew their rivalry from their Real Madrid and Barcelona days, only this time they are in charge of their new teams United and City respectively.

United had been on a bad run in the Derby in recent seasons having lost four in a row before going unbeaten in the last three derbies under Louis van Gaal as they won two and drew one. As a testament to the defensive stability at United in recent times Man City did not score in either of the two derbies last season.

Ander Herrera is hopeful of getting a start in the match as he has played four derbies in his time with the club and has won two matches, drawn one and lost one. It looks unlikely that he will get the start however but he may well feature off the bench for Jose Mourinho who is likely to continue with Pogba and Fellaini plus Rooney in midfield. Zlatan Ibrahimovic will be looking for revenge over Pep Guardiola for the disapointing season he endured as a Barca player in the 2009-10 season before he left on loan to Milan.  There is no love lost between the two especially from Zlatan’s side as reported by Sky Sports who said about Guardiola, “When you buy me, you are buying a Ferrari. If you drive a Ferrari, you put premium petrol in the tank, you hit the motorway and you step on the gas. Guardiola filled up with diesel and took a spin in the countryside. He should have bought a Fiat.” Zlatan also had this to say about Pep, “As a coach, he was fantastic. As a person, I’ve no comments about that, that’s something else. He’s not a man, there’s nothing more to say.” So Zlatan would clearly like nothing better than to beat his former coach.

Pep Guardiola was more diplomatic when talking about Zlatan in the past saying, “Ibrahimovic was a very important player for us. He helped us a lot and his first six months were excellent. Part of that league title we won is his. If I meet him I’ll greet him, I say again that I have no problems with him.” Guardiola also had this to say about the Swedish ace in September 2010, “It was a pleasure to coach Zlatan, I learned a lot from him. He has been playing at the top level for eight to 10 years, while I have coached for only two.”

So the match has the spice of Guardiola vs Mourinho and the heat of Zlatan trying to get revenge over his old coach. Jose Mourinho however has been outdone by Pep Guardiola in their previous meetings as he has won only three of their 16 matches going on to lose seven games and draw six matches, all of which were against Barcelona when Jose was with Real and Inter Milan.

The overall record favours United who have won 70 derbies over time to City’s 50 wins with 51 draws between the two. When it comes to goals City will surely miss the suspended Sergio Aguero badly as he has been responsible for all of City’s goals in the Derby going back to March 2014 when Yaya Toure scored for the Citizens. Wayne Rooney has the most goals all-time in the fixture with 11 including his mega-overhead kick goal. 

Mourinho must be thinking about how to get the red hot Marcus Rashford into his side. The young striker just scored a hat-trick for the England U21’s and scored the winner vs Hull City as well as scoring the winner in the Manchester derby back in March. Zlatan has only scored 41 times in his 34 league games since the beginning of last season including 2 so far for United – a pretty impressive strike rate you would have to say!!

So we think Jose will turn the tide of results against Pep and lead United to a 2-1 win at Old Trafford tomorrow lunchtime with kick-off at 12.30pm.