[Sport] Manchester United VS Manchester City( 26/10/16)(8pm)

They may be perhaps the ultimate managerial foes, dramatically opposed in the way they approach their jobs both on and off the pitch, but Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola can at last share some common ground ahead of Wednesday’s Manchester derby in the EFL Cup fourth round. It is, though, a similarity that neither will want to dwell on.Having arrived in Manchester together this summer, relaunching a rivalry that turned ugly while in charge of Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona, Mourinho and Guardiola have seen positive starts turn into talk of crisis.

 Manchester United has now won just once in its last six Premier League matches while Manchester City has gone five Premier League victories without a victory.That, though, is where the similarities end. For, while Manchester United is currently languishing down in seventh place in the Premier League table, Manchester City remains at the front of the pack. The questions hanging over both Mourinho and his new club are far more wide-ranging in scope.Sunday’s 4-0 evisceration at the hands of Chelsea was a painful indicator of how far Mourinho’s once fiery star has fallen. At the home of the team he was dismissed from in disarray 10 months earlier there was no sign that he had yet recovered any of his lost sparkle.If the performance in a goalless draw at Liverpool six days earlier had at least been effective, if not exactly easy on the eye, the display at Stamford Bridge had none of the discipline and intense focus that had been the foundation of his huge success earlier in his career.

And, while the EFL Cupis far from a priority for Mourinho or the club, he can now ill-afford the kind of further swift blow that a defeat to United’s closest rivals would bring.Were it to happen, it would be the second home defeat to United’s local foes that Mourinho has overseen in his first four months in charge. In early September, Manchester City came away with a 2-1 win that included a mesmerizing first-half display.