“There is something more powerful than the brute force of bayonets: it is the idea whose time has come and hour struck.”

Victor Hugo

It may appear hyperbolic to begin an analysis of the Manchester Derby with a quote from a 19th century French novelist, but replace the word bayonets with transfer budgets and you’ll soon see the point I’m making.

Since both arrived in Manchester two summers ago, Pep Guardiola has spent on average just £40million more than Jose Mourinho per season – just about enough to buy you half a Harry Maguire these days – and yet the difference between Manchester City and Manchester United was so cataclysmic on Sunday that the latter could have been practically any Premier League club suffering a routine City drubbing.

United were only there in name and subsequent branding; they could have been Burnley, Wolves or Brighton – in fact, some of those clubs produced far more spirited performances against City this season than the aimless and apathetic display United offered up in the weekend’s 3-1 loss.

And while that’s only further testament to how Manchester City, especially at home, have the power to make even the best of teams look ordinary, it’s also evidence of how United have become exactly that. Right now, they are eighth in the Premier League with -1 goal difference, behind Bournemouth and Watford.

Prior to Sunday’s encounter, Mourinho told reporters that he only wanted to view the match as an ‘isolated event’, rather than in the context of both clubs’ polarising starts to the season. That explains the game-plan United took away to their noisy neighbours, seemingly blocking out all the white noise and expectation to employ the most pragmatic approach possible, but in turn it only highlighted how significant and painful the gulf between both teams and clubs truly is right now.

Despite what Mourinho would’ve had you believe in the summer, it’s clearly not a gap created by money alone. While one club has become so short-sighted they can only digest the stress of one game at a time – and indeed, United’s pattern in recent months has been to only focus on the next opposition put in front of them in hope of averting a full-blown crisis – the other have undertaken an idea so vast, broad and powerful that Sunday’s dominant derby win is little more than a footnote in the journey City have travelled with Guardiola at the helm.

Whereas United have somehow reached a point where silverware will justify any means at least in the eyes of the manager and the board, City have sought to set new precedents, to create new records, to completely change the way we think about teams and players in English football. Trophies are essentially a byproduct of the club’s wider vision, collateral accumulation of even greater ambitions to create a legacy that will outlive their manager.

The contrasting power of those ideas materialised in performance on Sunday, setting apart two groups of players that, on paper at least, aren’t too distant in terms of ability.

In fact, two United players that didn’t even make the starting XI were transfer targets for Manchester City back in January, Alexis Sanchez and Fred, and of the two managers its Mourinho who has spent far more per player since summer 2016. An average of £42million across ten purchases, compared to £24.5million per each of Guardiola’s 22 City acquisitions.

Ideas can overturn financial power as well as military, and that’s what we’re now seeing on each side of Manchester. City embody an idea and a way of playing that spans far beyond their cumulative quality as individuals; United’s ethos seems to actually reduce that amongst their own squad. The former think as big and bold as they possibly can; the latter turns up to a derby with the mindset and performance of an ordinary club, and inevitably fail to produce the extraordinary.

Of course, much of that relates to the managers and how their respective views of the game fill opposing sides of the philosophical spectrum, but i’s a consequence of the inner workings of the wider clubs as well.

Although City may have allegedly achieved it through underhanded means at times, Guardiola’s tenure is the consequence of a decade of escalation towards this point of unparalleled dominance over the rest of the Premier League – Txiki Begiristian and Ferran Soriano have been in power for several years now, the academy producing the likes of Phil Foden was upgraded back in 2010 and City’s transfer policy throughout has been largely consistent with the idea of signings to entertain the masses.

Manchester United, on the other hand, have lacked a helicopter view since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement. Three managers have been hired since with completely different levels of experience, accolades and styles of play, the scatter-gun signings have created an utterly mish-mashed squad and the academy revamp didn’t truly get into full swing until last year. There’s no collective idea, aside from a long and prestigious history, that truly bonds all sectors of the club together anymore.

While City are fuelled by the strength of their own wider vision, their short-sighted neighbours are struggling to see past the end of their own nose right now. That was the ultimate difference on Sunday, and until there is a drastic shift at Old Trafford towards long-term thinking, a gap that already feels almost unbridgeable with Guardiola still around will only grow larger.