As Manchester City target a fourth consecutive derby day victory at Old Trafford this Sunday they could yet beat Chelsea to coveted silverware this season. After 6-1, 2-1 and 3-0 wins over Manure at The Swamp, City know that doing the league double over their despised foe will just about represent the highlight of a bewilderingly disappointing season. Sadly for Manuel Pellegrini and his underachieving squad, the only way City […]

Manchester City’s past and present personnel combined to brighten Manuel Pellegrini’s immediate future, as his team strives to retain their Premier League title. The Etihad superstars of the here and now duly murdered Newcastle’s visiting Magpies – as they have done for nearly a decade – after the unheralded City youngsters of yesteryear did their former employers a massive modern day favour. A five star showing and a 5-0 roasting […]

Character is a word often abused in football parlance. How often do we hear a player or a manager, a pundit or a commentator trot out how a team has shown ‘character’, simply because they’ve been a goal or two behind, staged a ‘comeback’ and earned a draw or a win? The noun is bandied around like confetti at a wedding where all the guests have taken advantage of the ‘buy […]

Manchester City’s arch foes Michel Platini and Jose Mourinho were probably wearing smug grins after Manuel Pellegrini’s team won their seventh consecutive game in both the Champions and Premier Leagues. But why would UEFA’s Little Napoleon and Chelsea’s Snide One be smiling when City, the team everybody now loves to hate, had maintained momentum with a hard fought 1-0 win against rock bottom Leicester City? The answer is found in […]

Edin the Executioner, Manuel the Engineer and Lampard the Eternal ensured Manchester City eventually eased to three precious points, in an ‘Ee bah gum’ northern encounter packed with twists and turns. It came as no surprise that the Champions raced into a two-goal lead over Hull City within 11 minutes, courtesy of a clinical finish from Sergio Aguero and a super-strike from Dzeko. What followed in a separate 11 minute […]

Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour and Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak were today trying to explain to ‘Super Frankie Lampard’ the mystery surrounding the loss of his flight tickets to JFK Airport in New York. City’s billionaire benefactor was also at a loss to fathom how all the luxurious 5 Star apartments overlooking Central Park had suddenly gone off the market, and Lampard’s ‘Green Card’ US work permit, had changed colour to sky […]

Singing and dancing in the rain, the Manchester City faithful soaked up the unbridled joy of an Etihad Stadium awash with goals, as Liverpool’s title bid all but went down the plughole. Whereas the puddled Scousers had been prematurely celebrating amid the April showers, it’s the City fans feeling rosy as May flowers with sky blue blooms and the sweet scent of Premier League success. Manuel Pellegrini’s crop are proving […]

Goodison Park’s version of the ‘SAS’ may well have determined the destiny of the Premier League trophy a week today. For months now the media have been hailing Anfield’s sensational strike force of Suarez and Sturridge as the specialist service that would land Liverpool the title. The blue half of Merseyside, desperate to deny the red side its first ever Premier League crown, instead opted for a combination of the […]

Happy Monday has arrived courtesy of Blue Sunday and yet another seismic shift in this, the most enthralling ever struggle, for Premier League supremacy. With less than a handful of games to go it seems any side labelled as title favourites suddenly develops a case of the shakes – the tectonic plates of the PL moving beneath their feet. Having been written off, vilified and then virtually ignored in recent days, […]

Saturday lunchtime at the Etihad and Manchester City and Southampton served a familiar dish from the menu of football clichés in that, it is indeed ‘a funny old game’. City cooked up a winning recipe as they stayed on course for the Premier League title with a delicious 4-1 outcome, but it was an encounter packed with diverse flavourings and one that served to confuse the palate. The three-goal margin […]