Jose Mourinho v Pep Guardiola – who’ll come out on top?
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It’s a fixture that every football fan looks forward to, and two of the most successful managers in the world will be experiencing it for the first time in their careers. That’s right, we’re talking about the Manchester derby, taking place this Saturday at Old Trafford.
And while the match itself takes centre stage, one eye will certainly be on the touchline as rivals Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola face each other for the 17th time in their careers.
Pep is bossing the head-to-heads
And it’s the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich manager who goes into this one with the psychological advantage over his rival, as Pep has won seven head-to-heads against his former Barca teammate, while Mourinho has only won three.
It’s Guardiola who also boasts the upper hand in the ‘goals scored’ category, too, with his sides finding the net on 28 occasions past Mourinho’s teams who are known for their ‘park the bus’ approach. To date, the self-proclaimed ‘Special One’s sides have averaged just over a goal a game in head-to-heads.
There’s only been one 0-0 in the 17 outings so far, and that came in the first ever meeting between the pair, back in 2009.
Meanwhile, the biggest result to date came in Mourinho’s first El Clasico, where Real Madrid suffered a shock 5-0 defeat at the hands of Barcelona in the Camp Nou.
Odds of 250/1 for a repeat of that result in favour of Pep’s Man City side suggest the value in this fixture might be elsewhere.
United v City: How they stack up this season
Both teams have scored in the last five meetings between Guardiola and Mourinho, while the sides have scored 15 goals combined so far this season, making the 8/11 on BTTS a tempting price for punters.
However, the United boss boasts an impressive record against City in the Premier League, losing just two of his 11 matches against the Citizens.
To finish, we thought we’d pick out a quote from both managers to get you in the modd for Saturday’s humdinger…
Mourinho on Pep: “I hope one day Guardiola has the chance of winning a brilliant, clean championship with no scandal.’
Pep on being told he was similar to Mourinho: ‘If that’s true, I will have to revise my behaviour.’
Strap yourselves in folks, this one’s unmissable!
Man United are 13/10 favourites to take all three points, while City are 11/5 to win at Old Trafford.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
