He's partly right but why would you ever want to play up an inferiority complex to your closest rivals? United fans still sing about Manchester being red, in their eyes City still aren't the bigger club and this admission of inferiority is embarrassing to the fans.

You don't have to lie and say they aren't better atm but this just reeks of instilling the mentality of a small club in order to manage expectations.

Also, it arguably so wasn't their strongest lineup - Aguero, Silva, or Ederson were all benched. And this isn't even mentioning other factors like City always starting strong cup lineups, the league being pretty much lost so it making sense for them not to take risks, plus the obvious fact that starting a strong lineup in a derby always makes sense regardless of context