This weekend sees Manchester City make the trip across the city to face United in the penultimate Women's Super League game of the season. Their mission? To clinch the final Champions League spot and disrupt the Reds' title charge.
While she is close friends with some of the United players off the field, City and England star Esme Morgan told MEN Sport how the blue blood runs deep when it comes to derby day, putting friendships on the back burner.
“We all get along really well," Morgan said. "Some of the people I'm closest to are from rival teams, I suppose. Me, Lauren [Hemp] and Coombsy [Laura Coombs], Sandy [McIver], Chloe [Kelly], we'll hang around a lot with Niamh Charles, Alessia [Russo] Tooney [Ella Toone] and Le Tissier [Maya].
“We go out for coffees and brunch together and things like that, but on Sunday, I was with [Manchester United player] Lucia Garcia actually. I've owed her a coffee because I lost a bet and I was saying we can be friends every day of the year except on derby day, and she was like that was fine.”
Morgan continued laughing: “I've been trying to learn Spanish and by no means am I fluent. Sometimes I'll have to check my message on Google Translate just to make sure it makes sense before I send it.
“I did threaten to poison her [Garcia’s] drink ahead of the derby day and I had to translate that because that wasn't something I'd learned so far, funnily enough. She replied with, 'I was going to say the same thing to you' so I thought, 'well, at least we're on the same page'.”
The two sides drew 1-1 when they met earlier in the season and Morgan watched from the sidelines: “I was absolutely gutted that we didn't beat United. We had so many fans there and I felt like we weren't our best version of ourselves in the first half. And that kind of just put us on the back foot.
“But then I felt like the second half, we completely controlled the game and dominated like we were going to win so it was just a bit heart wrenching to not be able to get over the line. We always want to beat United."
United host City at Leigh Sports Village on Sunday May 21 kicking off at 18:45 available to watch via Sky Sports or live audio commentary on the FA Player app.
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