Paper Monitor
10:34 UK time, Monday, 24 October 2011
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
Football fans were treated to a host of derby matches over the weekend.
Aston Villa took on West Brom and Queen's Park Rangers battled Chelsea. An all-Cheshire clash between Crewe and Macclesfield was one of League Two's highlights, while Dundee United versus St Johnstone in the Scottish Premier League divided Tayside.
On the back pages, however, only one encounter between local rivals matters.
Champions Manchester United's 6-1 humbling at the hands of their erstwhile "noisy neighbours", the newly petrodollar-rich Manchester City, was a dramatic enough tally in its own right.
But Fleet Street's breathless sportswriters were keen to imbue the result with such overbearing significance that Paper Monitor wonders why everyone involved in the battle for the Premiership title doesn't just give up and stay at home for the rest of the season.
For the Times, it was not just "a scoreline that will echo through the ages" but also
One the front page of its sports section, the formerly Mancunian Guardian breathlessly offers a host of statistics outlining why the result could "herald a new era". For "this felt like far more than just another win". For "United now face a struggle to be seen as the number one team in their own metropolis".
But the prize for hyperbole goes to of the Daily Mirror, for whom, after "nearly two decades of oppression", the jeering from the City terraces "was the sound of English football getting its own back on Manchester United at last".
Not all commentators were so quick to herald a transformation at the top of the game's pecking order, however.
³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ pundit and former Liverpool player Alan Hansen clearly remains chastened by the his dismissal of United's young squad on the opening day of the 1995/6 season on the basis that: "You'll never win anything with kids." The team went on to claim a league and cup double.
Hence he with an admission that his "track record when it comes to judging kids is not exactly great". While Hansen says the league is now City's to loses, he hedges this with the truism that "until you have the medal in your pocket, somebody else can always take it away from you".
In papers as on the pitch, the fear of failure haunts even the biggest names. It's only a game.
The 
