Manchester City endured another weekend to forget with a potentially damaging defeat and
City have all but given up hope of catching Chelsea at the top of
the log with only nine games left. And to add insult to injury, even the
Citizens second place is now under threat. From title contenders, City are
now only a point ahead of Arsenal and two ahead of United. And with
Liverpool also winning, Manchester City are right in the battle for the top
four Champions league spots. Their poor run of form has coincided with a
run of good form among all the other top four contenders. Since the
turn of the year, and since Yaya Toure left for the African Cup of
Nations, City have really struggled to perform in games. Aguero has
found it difficult to find goals and even the ever green David Silva for
once had a poor game against Burnley. The defence and in particular
Kompany have been really poor and have not protected Joe Hart enough.
City really need to get their act together because the chasing pack are
winning and they might just find themselves outside top four.
Manuel Pellegrini faces a tough task to retain his job with City also looking like they are out of the Champions League.
Arsenal's
good run of domestic run just goes on. After beating United in the FA
Cup, Arsenal comfortably ran over West Ham to keep the pressure on second
place City. The Gunners are playing really well since the turn of the
year and it looks like whoever plays in midfield, they always dominate
that area of the pitch. There is a really fierce competition for places
in the Arsenal team and the players have been upping their performances.
This has been the biggest reason for the Gunners improved performances.
Every player has competition for his position and mistakes are punished
as was the case with Mertesacker recently. At the moment Arsenal look a
good bet to make top four quite comfortably.
Manchester
United got a morale boosting 3-0 win over top four rivals Tottenham. It
was by some distant their best performance and result of the LVG era. The
team almost looked like the United of old with Carrick and Fellaini
dominating midfield. Mata was in the starting 11 and gave a brilliant
performance. The result was achieved without the suspended Di Maria and that poses the question whether he should be left out altogether against Liverpool.Another thing worth noting also was that Blind played very well on the left side of defence covering well defensively while at the same time providing valuable crosses. It was almost like Patrice Evra at his sublime best. I would like to see Blind get more game time in that position. He excelled there for the Netherlands during the World Cup. Next up for United is Liverpool and that game will give us a true measure of United's progress. It will be a very important match for the red devils in the context of Champion's League qualification.
Chelsea were held to a 1-1 draw that could have been damaging
had City not lost at Burnley. In the end the Blues actually increased
their advantage at the top to 6 points with a game in hand. Chelsea have
been stuttering of late in the league with the team struggling to
impose themselves in matches like they did earlier in the season but
such is their advantage at the top of the table that they are still
overwhelming favourites to clinch the title. The chasing pack and
especially City have simply not taken advantage. Failure to progress in
the Champion's League was a huge blow to Chelsea but they are set to get
consolation in the form of the EPL title.
Team of the Week
Player of the week
Fellaini
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