Manchester United vs Manchester City Prediction - All Set For The Manchester Derby

Next Sunday, 12th of April 2015, a motivated Manchester United will measure forces with their neighbours and rivals, Manchester City, at the emblematic Old Trafford for round 32 of the English Premier League.

The current EPL champions, Manchester City, have not yet managed to find a way to get back on tracks and keep collecting unimpressive results as we enter into the season’s final countdown. After an easy home win over a ten-men West Brom almost three weeks ago, the Citizens have once again been defeated last Monday’s night at Selhurst Park by a mighty Crystal Palace, who in the end were the fair winners of the match. A goal from Glenn Murray in the first-half and another one at the expenses of Jason Puncheon from a superbly placed free-kick right after the break, proved to be enough to impose the sixth defeat of the season to a deeply fragilized Manchester City, which has dropped to the 4th place of the table after their recent unimpressive results.

The defeats against Barcelona and the respective elimination from the UEFA Champions League had a major impact on the team and, if to that we add the EPL’s setbacks against Liverpool, Burnley and Crystal Palace, one can say that Manchester City are free falling and have very slim chances of recovering from such poor streak.

Their upcoming match at Old Trafford will surely be a very complicated one and, in case of defeat, the Citizens will eventually say goodbye to the second place of the EPL table for good.

As for Manchester United, after several ups and downs, the Red Devils seem to have finally put their orchestra playing at the same tempo and are currently on an excellent moment, with three consecutive wins against fairly complicated opponents such as Liverpool, Tottenham and Aston Villa.

Louis Van Gaal is far from being a consensual manager among Manchester United’s supporters, but the truth is that, against all odds, he has managed to catapult the team to the battle over the second place once again and an eventual win over their rivals of Manchester City on Sunday will certainly give them enough motivation to fight for that until the last match of the season.

Given both sides' recent performances, it is more than fair to name Manchester United as firm favourites for the upcoming derby.

Manchester United

Stats: W-4 L-1 D-0

Recent Form - WWWLW

Manchester City

Stats: W-2 L-3 D-0

Recent Form - LWLLW

Possible Line-ups

Manchester United (4-1-4-1) – De Gea - Valencia - Rojo - Jones - Blind - Carrick - Young - Fellaini - Herrera - Mata - Rooney

Manchester City (4-4-2) – Hart - Zabaleta - Mangala - Kompany - Kolarov - Touré - Fernando - Nasri - Silva - Aguero - Bony

Injury List / Suspended Players

Manchester United

Van Persie (inj)

Smalling (inj)

Manchester City

Wilfried Bony (inj) (in doubt)

Head-to-head matches:

Top Players:

Manchester United

Wayne Rooney

Juan Mata

David de Gea

Manchester City

Sergio Aguero

Yaya Touré

David Silva

Predictable Goal Scorers:

Manchester United

1. Wayne Rooney
2. Juan Mata
3. Ander Herrera

Manchester City

1. Sergio Aguero
2. Edin Dzeko
3. Yaya Touré

Half-Time Score

Manchester United 2 Manchester City 0

Full-Time Score

Manchester United 2 Manchester City 1