The anxiety at the Etihad in the closing minutes of the Manchester derby that gripped the fans and transmitted to the players cannot go on if City are to mount a charge for the Champions League knockout stages.

With the latest clash between the city’s two football titans taking place at the Etihad Stadium today, the global focus is certainly on this ‘football mad’ metropolis.

Come derby day and the whole city is abuzz with red and blue, with excited chatter, with bitten fingernails. It is a day when Manchester looks only to Manchester, as does the world, yet this most Mancunian of fixtures has lost quite a considerable amount of its Mancunian blood.

City have stuttered in recent weeks, first throwing away a 2-0 lead against CSKA Moscow in the Champions League before two domestic defeats on the bounce, to West Ham in the league and Newcastle in the Capital One Cup – losing their League Cup crown in the process.

A panel of experts have decided that City will receive awards for their excellent customer service last season – VisitFootball Club of the Year and VisitFootball Warmest Welcome

The atmosphere at the ground had also been low-key in the previous week’s less challenging league cup clash with Sheffield Wednesday, but City fan’s lack of enthusiasm became all too apparent when they left some 10,000 seats unfilled for a match of much larger importance.

The girls, who were apparently going to a One Direction concert at the Etihad Stadium on May 30, were followed down Fairfied Street by a man in a five-door silver Vauxhall Astra who kept stopping close to them.

The proposed memorial will read ‘Blue Moon – You Saw Me Standing Alone’.

Manchester City Football Club will host the three-day holiday programme in August to breed a generation of expert riders as cycling’s popularity continues to grow in Britain.

The Etihad will increase its size to more than 55,000 as three rows of seats are built pitchside.

The Blues have been held to ransom by their Ivorian powerhouse Yaya Toure after the 31-year-old announced that he was unhappy with the way he was treated during his birthday last month.