Earlier this week we heard that Manchester United had asked Manchester City to push forward their derby from 5th May to 6th May, keeping in mind that Manchester United play Milan away at San Siro on 2nd May, Wednesday night.
It’s not as bad as what Spurs had earlier (play in Sevilla on Thursday night, then play Chelsea on Saturday), but it’s tough considering United have been playing twice a week for a long time now and the injuries are putting a big strain on the squad.
While Chelsea had a Champions League match to consider on Tuesday and thus rejected Tottenham’s request to play on Sunday, Manchester City have no such commitments. In other words, Manchester City could very easily have delayed the game by a day, but they chose not to.
Why not? Is it because of the club rivalry? If so, it is a sad and negative choice made by City. Is it because they want to beat United so badly that they’ll take any advantage they can get? If so, devious, but still sad.
No issues though. Manchester United have little choice but to grit their teeth and pull through the final leg of the season. I find it a bit strange that a club that has no other commitments to honor and a club whose season is more or less over (they can’t really get relegated unless they lose 3 games really badly and Charlton win their next 3 by huge goal margins, and they can’t really challenge for Europe, you know) would chose to act like this.
Some people may call this as ‘standing up’ to a big club’s bullying, but this was anything BUT bullying. Manchester United will not complain about this (hopefully), and they’ll play without any grudges. The club rivalry puts in an extra edge to this situation, but there’s no need for City to not act honourably.
On BBC’s 606, there’s a City fan whose reaction to this was:
“Nice one City – why should we aid United’s title chances?”
If that’s how the club thinks, that’s a very petty reason to reject United’s request.
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