Just my two-penneth worth. First of all, I'm going to say well done to City. It's easy to be gracious in victory; graciousness in defeat is much harder. City deserved that win today; in fact 1-2 flatters us, much like last season. Guardiola now has them playing the Barca possession game and pressing the ball when the opposition have it. They dominated the possession and passed around us in midfield so many times. They are all very comfortable on the ball, including the defenders - even the keeper can play. In all honesty, they looked like the home side today, which is very impressive, considering we hadn't lost at home in fourteen months.
From our point of view, we really missed Pogba in midfield. Having two defensive midfielders in there meant City would dominate possession even more. I can't fault Jose for his tactics. Knowing we had to win, he went with a front four, which was brave against a very good team. For the most part we couldn't get those four attackers on the ball, as we were increasingly pushed backwards. I thought we defended well, as you'd expect, and both City goals came from deflections off Lukaku, who, by the way, had a hellish game. We got the equaliser very much against the run of play, and I thought/hoped it would really push us on in the second half. However, the second half turned out much like the first, with City bossing the possession. Even so, only a brilliant double save prevented us from equalising again.
Ultimately you can't be a threat when you don't have the ball, and we didn't have much of it. City are miles ahead of the rest of us at the moment. It hurts to lose a derby, especially at home, but we were just beaten by a better side today, and there's no shame in that. We now know we have ground to make up in terms of quality, and should use the rest of the season addressing our shortcomings and planning ahead. There isn't now going to be a title race this season, so to that extent the pressure is off. We'll definitely make top four, and Jose can think about what he needs to do to make us number one again. We need to rebound from this and prove we're the best of the rest, whilst looking towards signings who can take us to the next level.
Hurting tonight but not devastated; perhaps because we knew it would be a big task today. I want to get back to feeling devastated after a derby defeat because it was so unexpected. I feel introspective more than furious or embarrassed.