Manchester United F.C. 4–3 Manchester City F.C. (2009)

The first match between Manchester United and Manchester City in the 2009–10 Premier League football season was played on 20 September 2009 at Old Trafford, Trafford. It was the 153rd Manchester derby between the two clubs. Heading into the game, both teams were level on points having both won four matches in the opening weeks of the season, and big-spending City were seen as a new threat to United, who had been the dominant force in English football for over 15 years.

During the summer transfer window, striker Carlos Tevez had controversially left United to join City, and the match marked his return to face the club he had had much success with during his two-year stint. His replacement at United was veteran striker Michael Owen, much maligned for his injury record and status as an unwanted free agent. Throughout the summer and in the build-up to the match, Alex Ferguson and Mark Hughes, managers of United and City respectively, engaged in a bitter war of words through the media in an attempt to undermine the other. Ferguson, who had managed United for almost 23 years, made some of his most famous and scathing remarks towards City during this period.

In the match itself, Wayne Rooney opened the scoring early on, but a mistake from Ben Foster in the United goal allowed Tevez to assist Gareth Barry for City's equaliser. Two goals each from United's Darren Fletcher and City's Craig Bellamy meant that the score was 3–3 going into an allotted four minutes of injury time, before Owen controversially secured the win for the home side in the 96th minute. After the match, a victorious Ferguson described it as "the best derby of all time". In 2012, the match was voted as the best of the first two decades of the Premier League in the Premier League 20 Seasons Awards, and it is viewed as the first in a series of games that helped the rivalry progress from a small local derby to a fixture between two elite teams. The goal by Owen and the all-round performance of Ryan Giggs, who provided three assists during the game, are regarded as career highlights for each player.

It was the first of four meetings between the two teams during the season; they contested a two-legged League Cup semi-final in January 2010, followed by the reverse league fixture at the City of Manchester Stadium in April. United won three of the four games, scoring an injury-time winner on each occasion. Tevez played a central role as the rivalry increased, scoring or assisting a goal in each of the first three fixtures, and on multiple occasions clashed with United club captain Gary Neville both on the pitch and through the media. Each game was marred by incidents that warranted police attention, resulting in several arrests and an increased security presence at each match.

Background

The Manchester derby is a fixture contested between two football teams from the Greater Manchester region: Manchester United and Manchester City. Before this fixture, there had been 152 meetings between the two sides, the first held in 1881. The non-competitive fixture ended in a 3–0 victory for Newton Heath (who later became Manchester United) against West Gorton (Manchester City). The first competitive meeting was in the qualifying rounds of the FA Cup in 1891, which Newton Heath won 5–1. The most recent match between the two sides had been at Old Trafford in May 2009, when United won 2–0 thanks to goals from Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez. In total, United had recorded 62 victories in competitive meetings with their rivals; City won 41 of the matches and there had been 49 draws. Since the mid-1970s, United had been the better-performing of the Manchester clubs; they finished above City every year from 1990, and at one stage were two divisions above their local rivals. Whereas United had won a host of major trophies, including 11 league titles and three European trophies, during the previous 20 years, City had not won a major trophy for more than 30 years, and had spent 10 out of 19 seasons between 1983 and 2002 outside the top flight.

"Welcome to Manchester": Tevez joins City

In the summer transfer window before the fixture, Argentine striker Tevez had left United after spending two years with the club, and joined City in a controversial transfer involving his third-party owners, Media Sport Investment. Tevez believed United's supporters would accept the transfer and not view him as a traitor, and blamed United manager Sir Alex Ferguson for his departure from the club, claiming Ferguson did not contact him about extending his initial two-year deal. In his 2015 book ''Leading: Learning from Life and My Years at Manchester United'', Ferguson blamed Tevez's advisor Kia Joorabchian for the failure to sign Tevez to a new deal, writing that "it just seemed like we were renting him until Joorabchian could cut a better deal elsewhere".

Following the transfer, City unveiled a billboard in Manchester city centre featuring an image of Tevez and the phrase "Welcome to Manchester". The billboard was the idea of City's chief brand and marketing officer David Pullan, who persuaded the club's chief executive Garry Cook to run the billboard. Jeffrey Marcus of American newspaper ''The New York Times'' wondered if City's intent was to show that Tevez had found a different city than "the poseurish Manchester represented by the nationally and internationally renowned United, who count more supporters abroad than they do at home". The billboard was designed by New York-based advertising agency Anomaly, who were paid £30,000. The stunt led to Ferguson labelling City "a small club with a small mentality"; he also said that Liverpool and Chelsea were United's main competitors for the title, rather than City. City manager Mark Hughes responded by saying the billboard was a "bit of fun", and regarded Ferguson's comments as a sign of respect.

Having let both Ronaldo and Tevez go in the same transfer window, United opted to sign Michael Owen on a free transfer after he was released by Newcastle United. Writing in ''The Guardian'' newspaper, Manchester-based journalist Daniel Taylor described the move as "astonishing"; Owen was a former Liverpool player with a long history of injuries, and had only been linked with clubs in the lower half of the league. Ferguson claimed he opted for Owen as other players, such as David Villa and Sergio Agüero, would have been too expensive. After United had scored just one goal in their opening two matches (a 1–0 win against Birmingham City, and a 1–0 defeat to newly promoted Burnley), Ferguson and Owen were criticised by sections of the media and fans. Owen scored his first United goal – his first in competitive football for more than seven months – in the club's third league match of the campaign, a 5–0 win against Wigan Athletic at the DW Stadium, after which he said he "expect dto go on and score more goals in the United shirt".

Pre-match

Heading into the match, United were in second place in the Premier League table after five matches, trailing Chelsea by three points. Manchester City were in fourth place, level on points with Manchester United, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur and Aston Villa, but with a game in hand over all but Liverpool. United had won four of their five matches, while City had won all of their first four fixtures; a 4–2 victory over Arsenal had made it their best start to a season since 1961. The match was selected by Sky Sports for their televised coverage, with the fixture moved to a Sunday afternoon and a kick-off time of 13:30 BST.

In the week building up to the match, which was described by the BBC
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