A frustrating week for Manchester City, whose title dreams likely died at the Etihad to lowly Sunderland yesterday.
Guy Bailey
Editor’s Note: Guy Bailey will write columns for The Yanks Are Coming throughout the Barclay’s Premier League season where he discusses the happenings overseas in the world’s most popular sports league. Guy offers a unique perspective on the league as a Brit who lived for a long while in the United States before moving back to Teeside in the past year. He can be reached at guyrbailey@gmail.com and you can follow him on Twitter all EPL season at @guyrbailey.
Imagine you’re walking down the street in a beautiful sky-blue linen suit in 1976 on your way to Studio 54. All heads are turning to look at you strut, you pick your way over assorted street garbage and lampposts and just as the entrance is in site – a 10 tonne garbage truck rumbles past, hitting a muddy puddle and spraying you from head to toe in full view of the hip cats queuing to get in.
That’s what Manchester City feel this week – from being the hippest gunslingers in town to the oldest dude in the club, falling asleep into his drink just after midnight. In the space of four days, they where on the ropes against a frenzied Liverpool, infused with the righteous passion of the 25th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster before fighting back to take the upper hand then falling for a self-inflicted sucker punch when Vincent Kompany did a perfect DiMichelis and presented the ball to a barely believing Courtinho on the edge of the box to slam home and send the Kop a full three feet off the air to a man. They then had an immediate fillip on Wednesday night when bottom club Sunderland came to the Etihad. The same Sunderland who had lost eight in nine and City themselves had dispatched in the League Cup Final six weeks previously. Fernandinho gave them the lead in the first half and what seemed to be a stroll in the Spring evening air soon degenerated into a Marx Brothers routine as Connor Wickham struck his first and second Premier League goals of the season within a chaotic five second half minutes to leave them starring down the barrel. Samir Nasri has the cheek to claim an equalizer two minutes from time that was juggled and thrown over the line by the otherwise reliable Vitto Manone, performing as Harpo in the previously trailed feature and it ended in a draw with a point not of particular use to either team, not enough to bring City back into Liverpool’s slipstream and not enough to bring Sunderland back to daylight behind Cardiff and a suddenly not-dead Fulham.
Roberto Martinez’s Everton lost a game Moyes never lost yesterday…
Everton for once would be glad the spotlight was elsewhere as it has been for much of the season otherwise more would have been made of their laying a golden egg in time for Easter as virtually safe Crystal Palace came to town to sit on a point but morphed into a dynamic attacking force, racing into a two goal lead an ultimately 3-2 win to hand the impetus back to Arsenal in the race for 4th place which still feels wrong to celebrate even as I type it. It was a brutal blow for TYAC editor Neil W. Blackmon, who admittedly expressed his belief the dark storm was coming but certainly figured it wouldn’t be at home in Goodison to the former Stoke manager who hadn’t troubled David Moyes’ version of Everton…ever. For all the good St. Roberto of Martinez has done on the blue portion of Merseyside, this was a match Moyes always won.
The previous week saw Fulham doing their best Walking Dead impression and dragging Norwich back to the edge of Woodbury and resurrect their own chances of survival, Cardiff joining in with an unlikely 1-0 at an all of the sudden less-attractive footballing version of Southampton while West Brom fans had to endure the worst kind of footballing Déjà vu as they threw away another lead, 3-0 this time, to draw 3-3 at home to Spurs with another equalizer deep into stoppage time. Fortunately for them I think they’ll survive with one more win but there cannot be more teams in the league with less red zone discipline.
Fulham fans have been given a reason to believe of late…
The title now comes down to a two-team shoot out at Liverpool in a week’s time with Chelsea visiting and the maths are simple. Whichever team can win all of their remaining fixtures will be the champions. In the meantime Chelsea welcome Sunderland and Liverpool go to Norwich at the weekend both hoping to avoid stings in the tail; Cardiff have a chance to pull level with Norwich on points if they can beat Stoke at home while Fulham could escape the bottom three with a positive result at Tottenham. There is also a full dress rehearsal for the FA Cup Final as Arsenal visit Hull on Sunday while Man City will hope to keep the pressure on with a win over West Brom on Monday.
As noted, Guy Bailey writes on the Barclay’s Premier League for The Yanks Are Coming. Want more Guy Bailey? We highly recommend his new book, Blessay From America, a collection of writings made while living in America, where he married a southern belle and saw his son born, which you can purchase here.