Sport

Goals from Jack O’Connell, Ian Henderson and Matthew Done put Rochdale into the play-off places as they ended Preston’s eight-match winning run on Saturday

Pablo Zabaleta is leaving the celebrating to the fans after Manchester City beat Manchester United, as his team face a crucial Champions League clash against CSKA Moscow.

Oldham’s impressive run briefly took them into the League One play-off places, a feat they hadn’t managed since the opening weekend of last season, before defeat to Bristol City on Saturday.

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.

Sports fans worldwide held their breath in horror in February when Team GB’s 19-year-old freestyle skier Rowan Cheshire crashed in halfpipe practice at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park in Sochi.

The 20-times league champions head into the vital match on the back of a four-match unbeaten run, while City have lost their last two.

The Greater Manchester side go into the game with the second best home record in the league, with six wins from seven outings.

England’s last win over Australia was in the 1995 World Cup at Wembley Stadium, although the side did beat the Kangaroos in the 2006 Tri-Nations Series in Sydney when competing as Great Britain.

Rochdale sit ninth in the division after two impressive away victories against Yeovil and Swindon and Hill is pleased with the positive energy surrounding the club at this stage of the season.

Rosler will be locking horns with Fulham manager and ex Manchester City teammate Kit Symons at the weekend, his counterpart equally in need of a victory after his side lost 5-2 to Derby in mid-week.