EPL · Game Review

EPL game reviews – 2026-01-17

Premier League Matchday Review: Manchester City vs Manchester United

The latest round of EPL action served up a classic rivalry clash, with Manchester United hosting Manchester City in a fiercely contested derby. While only one match is on the slate today, it delivered plenty for punters and fans to unpack – from a surprise scoreline to some standout individual efforts that didn’t always match pre-game expectations.

Using the official match data and performance metrics, this review breaks down the final score, key attacking contributions, and some of the underlying numbers that matter most for betting analysis – especially for player shots, shots on target, goals, assists, and corners.

Manchester United vs Manchester City

This Manchester derby finished with a decisive result on the scoreboard and a few eyebrow-raising numbers in the stat lines. United came out on top with a 2–0 win over City, with all the goals arriving in the second half.

Final Score and Scoring Timeline

The team-level “standard” metrics in the data clearly define how the match played out:

  • Full-time score – Manchester United 2 – 0 Manchester City
    • Home (United), standard, full time: score = 2
    • Away (City), standard, full time: score = 0
  • First half – 0–0
    • Home, standard, 1st half: 0
    • Away, standard, 1st half: 0
  • Second half – 2–0 to United
    • Home, standard, 2nd half: 2
    • Away, standard, 2nd half: 0

That second-half surge from United was the difference, turning a tight tactical battle into a meaningful home win and a clean sheet in one hit.

Goal Scorers and Creators

All the goals came from United players, with the data listing individual “player goals” and “player assists” across the 90 minutes.

For Manchester United (home team), the goal scorers were:

  • Patrick Dorgu – 1 goal
    • Home, player goals, full time: Patrick Dorgu, score = 1
  • Bryan Mbeumo – 1 goal
    • Home, player goals, full time: Bryan Mbeumo, score = 1

No Manchester City player registered a goal:

  • All away players listed in the “player goals” metric have a score of 0.

In terms of creativity, the assist data points to two key contributors for United:

  • Bruno Fernandes – 1 assist
    • Home, player assists, full time: Bruno Fernandes, score = 1
  • Matheus Cunha – 1 assist
    • Home, player assists, full time: Matheus Cunha, score = 1

That gives United a clear attacking cluster: Dorgu and Mbeumo on the end of moves, with Fernandes and Cunha providing the final ball.

Direct Attacking Involvements (Goal or Assist)

To get a clean read on who directly contributed to goals, the “player score or assist” metric is particularly useful – it rewards players for either scoring or setting up a goal.

For United:

  • Bruno Fernandes – 1 direct involvement (1 assist)
    • Home, player score or assist, full time: Bruno Fernandes, score = 1
  • Patrick Dorgu – 1 direct involvement (1 goal)
    • Home, player score or assist, full time: Patrick Dorgu, score = 1
  • Bryan Mbeumo – 1 direct involvement (1 goal)
    • Home, player score or assist, full time: Bryan Mbeumo, score = 1
  • Matheus Cunha – 1 direct involvement (1 assist)
    • Home, player score or assist, full time: Matheus Cunha, score = 1

All other United and City players are listed with 0 in the “score or assist” column, confirming that the attacking output was concentrated around those four Red Devils, and that City failed to register any direct goal contribution at all.

Shots and Shots on Target

For punters who like player prop markets such as total shots or shots on target, the “player shots” and “player shots on target” metrics are gold. They also help explain who actually threatened goal, beyond just the scorers.

Manchester United – Shooting Breakdown

From the “player shots” data for the home side:

  • Amad Diallo – 3 shots
    • Home, player shots, full time: Amad Diallo, score = 3
    • Shots on target: 1 (score = 1 in “player shots on target”)
  • Bryan Mbeumo – 3 shots
    • Home, player shots, full time: Bryan Mbeumo, score = 3
    • Shots on target: 2 (score = 2 in “player shots on target”)
  • Patrick Dorgu – 2 shots
    • Home, player shots, full time: Patrick Dorgu, score = 2
    • Shots on target: 2 (score = 2 in “player shots on target”)
  • Kobbie Mainoo – 1 shot, 1 on target
    • Home, player shots, full time: Kobbie Mainoo, score = 1
    • Home, player shots on target, full time: Kobbie Mainoo, score = 1
  • Casemiro – 1 shot, 1 on target
    • Home, player shots, full time: Casemiro, score = 1
    • Home, player shots on target, full time: Casemiro, score = 1
  • Harry Maguire – 1 shot
    • Home, player shots, full time: Harry Maguire, score = 1
    • Shots on target: 0

Several other United players are recorded with 0 shots and 0 shots on target, including Bruno Fernandes, Luke Shaw, Lisandro Martínez, Mason Mount, and others.

From a betting perspective, Mbeumo and Diallo stand out as volume shooters here, with Dorgu extremely efficient in terms of turning both his attempts into efforts on target and also getting on the scoresheet.

Manchester City – Shooting Breakdown

City’s shooting output was far more subdued and spread across fewer players:

  • Amad Diallo (City do not have him) – ignore: he is home

For the away side, from the “player shots” metric:

  • Rico Lewis – 1 shot
    • Away, player shots, full time: Rico Lewis, score = 1
    • Shots on target: 0
  • Max Alleyne – 1 shot, 1 on target
    • Away, player shots, full time: Max Alleyne, score = 1
    • Away, player shots on target, full time: Max Alleyne, score = 1
  • Antoine Semenyo – 1 shot
    • Away, player shots, full time: Antoine Semenyo, score = 1
    • Shots on target: 0
  • Bernardo Silva – 1 shot
    • Away, player shots, full time: Bernardo Silva, score = 1
    • Shots on target: 0

Every other City player – including Erling Haaland, Phil Foden, Rodri, Jérémy Doku and Rayan Cherki – is shown with 0 shots and 0 shots on target in the data.

That’s a huge angle for anyone who likes to track form on shots markets: City’s usual attacking guns didn’t register a single attempt, while their only shot on target came from defender Max Alleyne. From a betting and tactical standpoint, that suggests United’s defensive structure smothered the visitors’ main threats and forced the danger to come from less typical sources.

Corners and Territory

Corner counts can say a lot about territory and pressure, and they matter for total corners markets as well as in-play momentum reads.

  • Full-time corners
    • Home (United), corners, full time: 1
    • Away (City), corners, full time: 6
  • First-half corners
    • Home, corners, 1st half: 1
    • Away, corners, 1st half: 3
  • Second-half corners
    • Home, corners, 2nd half: 0
    • Away, corners, 2nd half: 3

Despite losing 2–0, City finished with a 6–1 advantage in corners. That’s a classic example of a match where the scoreboard and the territorial or set-piece statistics tell slightly different stories. City had more sustained spells of pressure in wide areas and forced several corners, but United were far more clinical in turning their fewer chances into goals.

For anyone tracking corner-based markets or looking at in-play betting angles, this kind of split – City dominating corners but not goals – is worth noting for future matchups, particularly if the same pattern appears again.

Key Performers for United

Looking purely at the recorded stats, a few United players jump out:

  • Bryan Mbeumo – 1 goal, 3 shots, 2 on target, and 1 direct goal involvement (“score or assist” = 1). He combined volume shooting with end product.
  • Patrick Dorgu – 1 goal, 2 shots, both on target, plus 1 direct involvement. Extremely efficient in front of goal.
  • Bruno Fernandes – 1 assist and 1 direct involvement, even though he finished with 0 shots. His influence came through creativity rather than shooting.
  • Matheus Cunha – 1 assist and 1 direct involvement, despite not registering a shot. Another sign that United’s link play was sharp when it mattered.
  • Amad Diallo – 3 shots and 1 on target. He didn’t score or assist, but his willingness to shoot added pressure on City’s backline.
  • Kobbie Mainoo & Casemiro – 1 shot each, both on target. From midfield, they contributed to United’s threat from deeper areas.

Taken together, United’s key attacking contributors combined volume (Diallo, Mbeumo) with efficiency (Dorgu, Mbeumo) and smart final passes (Fernandes, Cunha). That blend was enough to break open a City side that actually enjoyed more corners and had more of the ball in dangerous areas.

Key Notes on City’s Performance

For Manchester City, the data paints a very different picture:

  • Erling Haaland – 0 shots, 0 shots on target, 0 goals, 0 assists, 0 direct involvements. By the stats, United kept him completely quiet.
  • Phil Foden, Bernardo Silva, Jérémy Doku, Rodri – all finished with no goals, no assists, and either 0 or just 1 shot (in Bernardo’s case, 1 shot but none on target).
  • Max Alleyne – the only City player to hit the target (1 shot, 1 on target), underlining how limited City’s attacking cutting edge was.
  • City’s attack generated no recorded direct goal contributions – every away player has 0 in the “player score or assist” metric.

Statistically, this was a flat outing from City in terms of finishing and final-third penetration, even though they did rack up more corners. From a betting lens, any pre-match expectations around high shot volumes or goals for City’s front line would have been badly undercut by this performance.

How the Numbers Translate for Punters

Looking back at the derby through the lens of odds and markets:

  • Match result markets: A United 2–0 win might have been priced longer compared to a City result, depending on form and injuries, but the data confirms it was fully earned on the day.
  • Both Teams to Score (BTTS): With City failing to find the net, BTTS “No” would have landed.
  • Correct score: United 2–0 is often in the mid-range of correct-score markets – valuable if you backed a clean-sheet win for the hosts.
  • Player shots & shots on target props:
    • Mbeumo (3 shots, 2 on target) and Diallo (3 shots, 1 on target) would have been excellent targets for overs on shots.
    • Haaland to register 0 shots would have been a very long price in most pre-match markets – a reminder of the upside in taking alternative lines or laying popular overs when the price is right.
    • Max Alleyne to record a shot on target is the kind of long-odds prop that can swing a same-game multi.
  • Corners: City winning the corners battle 6–1 yet losing the match supports strategies where you separate corner-based bets from result-based bets rather than tying them together.

When you put it all together, this derby underlines why it pays to dig into the underlying numbers – not just the final scoreline – and to compare odds across markets and bookmakers before getting involved.

Conclusion: What Today’s Derby Tells Us – and Why Odds Comparison Matters

Manchester United’s 2–0 win over Manchester City was built on efficient finishing and a sharp second-half performance, even though City enjoyed more corners and, on paper, should have had enough firepower to threaten more than they did. The data makes it clear:

  • United’s goals came from Patrick Dorgu and Bryan Mbeumo, with Bruno Fernandes and Matheus Cunha providing the assists.
  • United’s main shooting threats were Mbeumo and Amad Diallo, with Dorgu clinical when it counted.
  • City’s attack misfired, with star names like Erling Haaland and Phil Foden not registering a single shot.
  • City still dominated corners 6–1, a reminder that set-piece and territory stats don’t always translate to goals.

For anyone betting on the EPL, these kinds of splits between expectation and reality are exactly why it’s so important to shop around on prices, especially for player props, corners, and correct-score markets. The same numbers can be priced very differently from bookie to bookie.

Before your next flutter on a Manchester derby – or any Premier League match – make sure you’re getting the best possible value on every market. Use our odds comparison tool to line up prices from multiple bookmakers side by side, find the standout value on match results, player shots, goals, and corners, and turn detailed stats like today’s into smarter, better-informed bets.

Check today’s EPL odds now, compare the markets that matter to you, and back your read with the best price available.