Football
Rob Dawson, Correspondent 6y

David De Gea tells Man City to expect an in-form Man United side in derby

David De Gea has warned Manchester City they will face a confident and in-form Manchester United side this weekend.

All the questions in the build-up to Sunday's Manchester derby have been about how United can stop a City team that has won 14 of their first 15 Premier League games this season and their last 13 in a row. Victory for City at Old Trafford would set a new Premier League record for consecutive wins in a single season,

But De Gea says it is not all about Pep Guardiola's side and has reminded the blue side of Manchester that, on home turf, United have not lost for 40 games over a period of more than a year.

He told Sky Sports: "Well, can City stop United as well, no? We play at home, with the fans, a special game of course, it's a derby. We are confident, we feel really strong and we want to win."

United have won their last four league games, including two tricky trips to Watford and Arsenal.

They sealed qualification in the Champions League on Tuesday night with a 2-1 win over CSKA Moscow at Old Trafford, while City lost 2-1 to Shakhtar Donetsk on Wednesday.

De Gea added: "We are in a really, really good moment. We won two away games, difficult games, so we are confident, we are strong, we know we play an important game and, like I said before, we really want to win."

City midfielder Yaya Toure, though, has said he expects United to be "worried" and that they will play on the counter-attack -- sitting deep because of the threat of their quick attackers.

A victory would see City move 11 points clear at the top of the Premier League and Toure expects a reaction after they suffered their first defeat of the season in the Champions League defeat to Shakhtar Donetsk on Wednesday.

"This year I think, when you see United, they are going to be worried about us," Toure told reporters. "They're going to be very dangerous on the counter-attack and we have to be ready for that.

"Otherwise we will see the game they played against Arsenal a few days ago -- so we have to be careful.

"I think with players like [Romelu] Lukaku, [Zlatan] Ibrahimovic and [Jesse] Lingard, who is playing well, [Marcus] Rashford and [Anthony] Martial, they're very fast.

"We need to have a big performance on Sunday. It's going to be difficult because the way you saw Shakhtar play against us is the way United will play -- counter-attack, counter-attack. Very fast and very strong.

"When I see United playing games against big teams, they always wait for a mistake to hit teams on the counter-attack."

ESPN FC's Manchester City correspondent, Jonathan Smith, contributed to this report.

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