The Blues are still safe at the head of the standings due to United’s draw on Sunday. By Camilla Mancini
One more time Manchester City has opened a gap that even though is small, take off some weight from its shoulders and filled them with enthusiasm to continue triumphing. This is the perfect moment for the Citizens to be merciless, because a couple of their next rivals haven’t been as strong during the season as United’s next. Right now United is just two points behind its neighbors, but if they both repeat for a couple of fixtures more their results from round 24, the Citizens could be truly safe on the top at least for a while. At least the Red Devils had some luck in something else, Tottenham couldn’t get any closer to them, as it also finished with a draw on its match on Monday against Liverpool. In fact it is going to be a bit hard for the Spurs to get closer to the second-placed, because the game against Liverpool was just the beginning of a tough streak, from which they are still missing Newcastle, Arsenal and United.
So, City hosted Fulham on Saturday’s last match and caught the lead early in the game with Sergio Aguero charging a penalty awarded to Chris Baird for a foul over Adam Johnson. About 20 minutes later Baird and Johnson were in the fight for the ball again, but this time when the Cottager attempted to clear a shot from the rival, send the ball to his own goal. The Citizens maintained the double lead for most of the match, but almost twenty minutes before the end when the snowfall had intensify a third goal was placed by Edin Dzeko with assistance from Aguero. The 3-0 has left Roberto Mancini’s club with 57 points while Fulham holds 27 points and waits in the 14th spot for a chance to climb in the standings.
On Sunday Manchester United went south to visit the Stamford Bridge Stadium, home of Chelsea, where the Red Devils seem to be destined to never win again, since for a decade they haven’t been able to win there. The match was very entertaining though, it had a lot of action from both sides, but maybe more from the hosts as they had more control of the ball. During first half there was only one goal that for Jonathan Evans’ misfortune it was an own goal that gave the lead to the Blues. The great job from Andre Villas-Boas’ men brought two goals early in the second half. First Juan Mata converted a pass from Fernando Torres few seconds after the restart and in less than 5 minutes the Brazilian David Luiz placed the 3-0 that made us all think that it was the end of the Red Devils. Nonetheless, at 56’ an unfair challenge by Daniel Sturridge made the referee call for a penalty and 10 minutes after a second penalty was awarded, both were charged by Wayne Rooney and just like that the match was at 3-2. The goals came like a gust of fresh air for Ferguson and his men and within 7 minutes to the end of the match, Javier Hernandez saved his club from leaving pointless.
The other matches from round 24: Arsenal 7-1 Blackburn; Wigan 1-1 Everton; West Brom 1-2 Swansea; Stoke 0-1 Sunderland; QPR 1-2 Wolves; Norwich 2-0 Bolton; Newcastle 2-1 Aston Villa; Liverpool 0-0 Tottenham.
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