Mourinho was in crisis mode against City, he knows instant wins are only way to connect with fans

There were 83 minutes on the clock when the Stretford End reached into the depths of their songbook to pluck out a rarely heard chant. Old Trafford had echoed to the sound of “Guardiola”, the Manchester City fans’ Dave Clark Five-inspired anthem, for swathes of the first half. The Manchester United faithful only responded as victory beckoned. The wait indicated appreciation was conditional on the result. A realist understands that.

But then “Jose Mourinho’s Red and White Army” rang around Old Trafford. It has felt at times as though the Portuguese’s name was sung more during Louis van Gaal’s reign than his own. “My heart belongs to the fans,” said Mourinho. The feeling may not yet be reciprocal – they do not celebrate him as the City faithful trumpet Pep Guardiola – but Mourinho is on a charm offensive. He began with an apology for the 4-0 thrashing at Chelsea in the programme, ended it signalling the same scoreline and bowing to the fans in contrition, before trying to serenade them.

“The love the people have for the club is bigger than bad results and bigger than three bad seasons,” he said, talking in extremes, of undying love and the odds being stacked against him. “In the last week everything went against us,” he said.

In reality, much went for him against City: home advantage, the early chance Kelechi Iheanacho missed which could have had the same effect as Pedro’s goal after 30 seconds in the defeat against Chelsea, the possible penalty when Michael Carrick bundled into Aleix Garcia and Mike Dean waved away appeals. But, never a natural gambler, Mourinho also stacked odds in his favour.

The pragmatist supreme selected a seasoned team while the idealistic Guardiola promoted the ingenues. Still waiting for an apology from the preposterous Dimitri Seluk, the Catalan omitted Yaya Toure and instead used Leroy Sane as an utterly ineffective No. 10. In contrast, the Portuguese recalled the man he sold at a former club and Juan Mata was Mourinho’s unlikely rescuer with a well-taken winner.

The Spaniard will never be a quintessential Mourinho player but his inoffensiveness can camouflage his killer instinct. His United career already included a decisive brace at Anfield and an FA Cup final equaliser. This was his second Manchester derby goal and, while the teams were weakened and while Guardiola's attitude suggested he did not recognise its significance to supporters, this was still a derby. “One-nil in your Cup final,” chorused the City fans, suggesting the shift in the balance of power in Manchester meant it mattered more to United. “The city is ours,” replied their hosts.

They expelled City from a competition they won in two of the previous three years. Mourinho, like Manuel Pellegrini, recognised this is an eminently winnable trophy. Guardiola took the other approach from a rival and a predecessor. “No regrets,” he said after entering the uncharted territory of a sixth successive game without a win. “It is the first time. After seven years as a manager, it happens now.”

The timing was not pure coincidence. With even a couple more quality players, City might have capitalised, especially in an uneventful start. But, for the third time in four games, Sergio Aguero began on the bench. For the first time under Guardiola, City failed to record a shot on target. Mourinho took the precaution of picking David de Gea, but he need not have done. Guardiola brought in Willy Caballero, who made the game’s best save to deny Paul Pogba.

He was set up by Zlatan Ibrahimovic, just as the Swede was Mata’s supplier for the sole goal. He was an emblematic figure, spending the first half as a seeming indictment of Mourinho’s United, an immobile Galactico whose passing was strangely poor, but serving in the second as a reason for the redemptive win. He was more forceful, more prominent, looking a big-game figure. His recent tally stands at just one goal in nine appearances, a far cry from the 50 in 51 he recorded for Paris Saint-Germain last season, but Ibrahimovic did enough to suggest he need not go the way of the dropped (and now injured) Wayne Rooney or the exiled selfie king Bastian Schweinsteiger just yet.

He started a third game in seven days. If the theory is that Mourinho is the short-term specialist, Guardiola the man with the long-term vision, their selections supported that. The smiling Catalan, praising the 19-year-old Pablo Maffeo for an “exceptional” performance, scarcely wore the expression of a man in his worst spell.

Mourinho, meanwhile, was in crisis-management mode. Like the watching Sir Alex Ferguson used to, he recognised that some fixtures, no matter the competition, require premier players. Like Ferguson tended to, he drew a response to a damning defeat, caring less for the style than the immediate return to winning ways.

Winning changes regimes and perceptions alike. Mourinho knows that better than most. There is a ground that used to reverberated to the sound of his name, but that was Stamford Bridge, long before his historic humiliation there. “Numbers that the history of this club doesn’t deserve,” he reflected. But he saw merit in victory, in progress, in the restoration of some pride and in the chance to build an alliance with the fans. The soundtrack, eventually, was music to his ears.