Ruben Amorim could not have asked for a more perfect televisual moment to make his point to Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho as they watched on, embarrassed, from their respective homes.
Amad Diallo was by far the best player on the pitch on Sunday and even before the two match-winning moments his ingenuity and attitude had set a new standard for the Amorim regime.
Industrious, brave, and assertive: these are the qualities so obviously absent at Manchester United and the qualities Amorim has now made clear are the minimum requirements.
But only in those final few minutes did Amad, and by extension Amorim, really hammer home the message to United’s ostracised pair.
It was a victory not of talent but of simple hard work and application: attributes someone like Amad has always needed, attributes that United’s more preternaturally gifted footballers have often felt they can get by without.
Amad isn’t a particularly young player, isn’t a Manchester United academy graduate, and isn’t even an especially talented footballer by the club’s historic levels. Yet after the Manchester derby Amad was talked about as if this Atalanta signing and late-late bloomer is Rashford’s heir apparent; as if he isn’t three years older than Garnacho.
It tells us just how desperately Man Utd believe in youth and academy products. And it tells us that everyone wanted to make the comparison to Rashford and Garnacho as stark as possible.
But the truth is actually more humiliating for the two players left at home. The fact that Amad isn’t a hotshot kid, but rather someone working incredibly hard to overcome the odds, is damning.
So too were Amorim’s subtly harsh words.
“When people in the club are losing their jobs, we have to push our standards really high,” was the standout line, one that could have referred to Dan Ashworth’s departure but just as likely to the redundancies at Old Trafford.
Shame is the feeling we return to here.
The hope is that it will motivate Rashford and Garnacho to shake off complacency, work harder, and earn back the trust and respect they’ve temporarily lost.
“Next week, next game, new life, they are fighting for their places but for me it's important, the performance in training, the performance in game, the way you dress, the way you eat, the way you engage with teammates, the way you push your teammates, everything is important when we want to change a lot of things.”
This is excellent management.
Amorim faces one of the most difficult jobs in world football. It’s a very good sign that he’s already setting high standards and clear boundaries while also offering those shunned the chance of a clean slate.
It was an early test of leadership, an early test of whether United’s listlessness and arrogance would be indulged by yet another manager.
Amorim has passed it with flying colours, and once the dust settles on Sunday’s game supporters ought to celebrate the manager’s squad selection considerably more than the final result.
It will have lasting implications in a way beating this Man City team cannot.
We’ve had plenty of hints over the last few years that the culture in the Old Trafford dressing room is rotten.
Amorim’s comments before and after the Manchester derby were definitive proof that something is badly wrong – and, more importantly, that he has the strength of personality to fix it.
More from Sporting Life
Safer gambling
We are committed in our support of safer gambling. Recommended bets are advised to over-18s and we strongly encourage readers to wager only what they can afford to lose.
If you are concerned about your gambling, please call the National Gambling Helpline / GamCare on 0808 8020 133.
Further support and information can be found at begambleaware.org and gamblingtherapy.org.