It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...for the Manchester clubs in the Premier League this weekend.
One defensive unit earned a much needed clean sheet to help seal a winand the other gifted their opponent an easy win with a shambolic performance.
Manchester United kept Tottenham at bay to cling onto a narrow one-goal lead and claim a first Premier League win at home since September.
And while Henrikh Mkhitaryan stole the show with the winning goal, his general creativity, pace and Man of the Match display, it was centre-backs Phil Jones and Marcos Rojo who deserve a lot of credit for completely shutting Spurs down.
Jones has struggled with injury for much of his time since joining United in 2011 and has only recently returned to action by virtue of Chris Smalling's broken toe and Eric Bailly's knee problem.
He has been enjoying a good run of form and fitness and has looked to finally be getting back to something like his seldom seenbest on Sunday. The former teenage prodigy was winning headers, reading the game well and made one particularly smart tackle at the death that would have resulted in a penalty had it been even slightly mistimed.
For Rojo, his improving form of late has been even more remarkable. The Argentine was signed as a left-back after impressing during the 2014 World Cup and fairly quickly lost the trust of Louis van Gaal in the centre of defence after failed early experiments.
Again, much like Jones, his renewed involvement as a centre-back has come as a result of injury to others and he almost looks like a different player.
He was physical against Spurs, positioned himself surprisingly well and snuffed out the threat of danger quickly as it arose. What's more, Rojo willingly cleared the ball up the pitch or into the stands when trying to do anything else would have carried risk or produced a mistake - more than can be said for his counterparts at Manchester City.
For John Stones and Aleksandar Kolarov, this weekend marked more of the same -more of the same avoidable mistakes, more of the same senselessly poor positioning, more of the same lack of leadership and more of the same goals being conceded.
No one commanded the situation when Jamie Vardy gave Leicester the lead inside three minutes at a rain-soaked King Power Stadium on Saturday evening. No one closed down Andy King for the second two minutes later and Kolarov was completely disinterested in retreating into position as Vardy made it three with only 20 minutes played.
Stones looked like a lost child at that particular moment and was later guilty of playing another hopelessly blind back-pass that allowed Vardy to make it four and complete a hat-trick.
Goalkeeper Claudio Bravo has taken the brunt of the blame for City's defensive problems this season but he is being left exposed by the defenders in front of him time after time.
Defending doesn't have to be difficult - stopping goals is easier than scoring them- but City are making it hard for themselves and it is costing them more and more each week. United did it right on Sunday, didn't try anything risky and got their reward. This is a tale of two defences.
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