Manchester United are about to have summer transfer priority made clear to them

If there was any semblance of hope still left in Ole Gunnar Solskjaer after Manchester United's thrashing at the hands of Liverpool in October then it was extinguished two weeks later.

That was when Manchester City turned up at Old Trafford and did a similar number on Solskjaer's team. The scoreline might not have been as X-rated but this was a one-sided and comfortable a 2-0 away win as you're ever likely to see.

Somehow, Solskjaer was allowed to stumble on for another two weeks and through the November international break before being sacked after the horror show at Watford, but whatever had happened at Vicarage Road the writing was on the wall for the Norwegian.

United were humiliated in successive home games by their biggest rivals and there's no coming back from that. Now, four months later, they head across town under Ralf Rangnick, although labelling this as a revenge mission is pretty unrealistic. United might have improved under the German but they are nowhere near the equals of City, although getting a result in 90 minutes isn't beyond them.

It will be interesting to see how United have improved when they take to the field at the Etihad on Sunday, although the fear is they will be as outclassed this weekend as they were back in November.

The post-mortems of those devastating autumn defeats could have landed at any number of conclusions, but it was hard to escape the idea that the midfield was the primary cause of the maulings. In the Old Trafford derby, City made 852 passes, more than double the number of United.

Competing with the Blues' midfield on an equal footing can be beyond most teams in Europe but this was grievous, to the point Donny van de Beek was serenaded by the Stretford End.

With a quiet