As a fan of the red team in Manchester, defeat in the derby last Sunday seemed inevitable, even after the comeback win over Juventus in Turin midweek.

City’s squad is at the end of the day far better than United’s, with only David De Gea likely to make any combined XI between the two clubs.

When comparing United’s current squad to the other top six sides gives a real indication of where the problems currently lie on the pitch at Old Trafford, as the squad is completely imbalanced, with a lack of specialists in key areas that would cause a selection headache for whoever is in charge.

I’ll note at this point though that this is not a defence of Jose Mourinho who has to shoulder a large portion of the blame for United’s current struggles as he insists upon a ponderous, defensive approach that all to often allows the opposition the chances they want.

Back to the squad though and a series of issues arise. The XI that faced City lined up in a 4-3-3 formation, with Ashley Young at right-back and Jesse Lingard ahead of him. On the left, Luke Shaw was at full-back with Anthony Martial on the wing.

This is a good example of the imbalances and lack of specialist players in the United squad, Shaw and Martial on the left are specialist operators in those positions (Martial can play centrally but seems best out wide), while the right features Lingard who has been far more effective centrally as a no.10 and Young who has played almost every position in his time at United.

Young just is not a right-back. He may be able to do a job there, just as he can at left back, but he has spent most of his career before now playing as a winger and at 33 struggled to cope with the pace of Raheem Sterling. The other players in the United squad that have played there include another 33-year-old former winger in Antonio Valencia, teenager Diogo Dalot and out of favour and seemingly out of the door Matteo Darmian.

The same goes for the right-wing position, with Lingard not the first to be shunted their due to a lack of a true option on that flank. Martial played there after Alexis Sanchez was signed to accommodate the Chilean, whose signing is another signal of a huge blind-spot in recent transfer windows.

Others tried on the right include Juan Mata, who drifts centrally into his preferred position anyway, Marcus Rashford who is better centrally or on the left and Sanchez himself. All of the players at United who play out wide prefer to play on the left or centrally, so whoever plays on the right is just filling a hole.

United haven’t signed a true specialist in that position since Antonio Valencia joined before becoming a auxiliary full-back. Meanwhile Liverpool have signed Mo Salah and then brought in Xherdan Shaqiri as back up, Chelsea bagged Pedro, City finally got Riyadh Mahrez, Tottenham acquired former United target Lucas Moura and Barcelona signed Malcom and promptly left him on the bench.

Any of these players would go straight into the United team on the right flank, yet they wasted their time and a huge wage bill to bring in another left winger in Sanchez who has shown no signs of recapturing the form he produced at Arsenal.

The imbalance extends further through the squad, with a reliance on physicality over technical ability creating a situation where the game plan seems to be knocking a long ball in the general direction of Romelu Lukaku, bypassing a midfield entirely reliant on Paul Pogba to produce any finesse, giving away possession

A lack of an alternative to the immobile Nemanja Matic in the holding role means teams like City will find it all too easy to pass their way through United, exposing a porous defence that has a makeshift full-back and centre-backs that if the summer window is anything to go by Mourinho doesn’t actually want.

A major overhaul looks to be a necessity just to get into the top four, let alone challenge City and even Liverpool at the very top of the table. January could be key just to make sure the club doesn’t slip further away than they already are.