Manchester United coach Ruben Amorim has criticised his team, and Manchester City for lacking the quality to produce a “spectacle” after both sides laboured to a 0-0 draw at Old Trafford.
Both sides failed to impress in a drab affair, which underscores their struggles this season.
Manchester United have been in the bottom half of the table all season, Man City have failed to mount a credible defence of the Premier League title.
Pep Guardiola’s men are out of the Premier League top four as they endured their worst season under the Spaniard.
Amorim admitted that both sides are not in the best moments to give the fans the type of football they want to watch.
He said: “We are not in the best moments to give the best spectacle to every fan. I understand that we are doing the worst season in history. Manchester City won everything in the past, this season is struggling.
“When we are not fighting for the big things, of course it’s different. But you have to look at the context of the game.
Manchester United are on course for their lowest finish in the Premier League, and their lowest points tally in the division.
Amorim is confident that the team’s fortunes will change next season, claiming he is seeing improvements in the players.
He said: “At the moment it’s still really hard every day, but of course you can imagine that the next season is going to be so much different.
“Everybody here is suffering a lot with all these changes and we have to show something in the next year, so right away.
“In the good days you think like that — that it was important to come in the middle of the season, to work with the players, to improve the players as soon as possible, to start the next season with a better idea of what we want.
“Today was that day that we played well. Of course you can feel it in the game, it’s not there, in the top level, the intensity, but you can also understand the context of both teams at this moment.”
Manchester City have kept a clean sheet in successive Premier League games for the first time since May 2024, though they’ve failed to score in consecutive away matches in the competition for the first time since December 2020.
This was just the third Manchester derby to finish 0-0 since the start of 2016-17 across all competitions, previously doing so in April 2017 and December 2020, both in the Premier League.
Manchester United will face Lyon in the Europa League quarter-final on Thursday before taking on Newcastle United on Sunday.
