There goes another weekend and now we can all look forward to the Carabao Cup. Yes, dear readers, the Carabao Cup fills in for the Champion’s League this week and much excitement will be available to fans when they watch United take on Burton Albion at Old Trafford and City play Mr. Entertainment himself, Tony Pulis and his West Brom team at The Hawthorns.
Not this week the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Münich and Qarabag. No, it is the lesser known teams of football, the minnows who get their chance in the spotlight.
Before all that though, City had to negotiate what turned out to be a very untricky fixture against unbeaten Watford. “Unbeaten” Watford are now very much “beaten” Watford thanks to Pep Guardiola’s men putting six past them. Marco Silva now knows what it is like to awaken from a very pleasant dream and find out that the real world is the nightmare.
City’s walk in the park included another hat-trick for Sergio Agüero, who could have had more but he again decided to show how unselfish he can be by giving a penalty to Raheem Sterling who had been the player fouled in the run-up.
Sterling scored from the spot but did little else of any note. He still loses possession very easily and is prone to give the ball away far too often.
Additional goals from Otamendi and Jésus made up the sextet of strikes and the fact that two of the total were scored from offside positions should not take anything away from the performance. The chances are that, even if the two goals had been disallowed, City would still have gone on to score six!
With only Tottenham and Liverpool of the “big six” also playing on Saturday and neither of them being able to win at home, attention turned to Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford on Sunday for the games involving Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United and Everton.
Chelsea and Arsenal managed to draw 0-0 which turned a reasonable weekend for Manchester into, potentially, an excellent one. Now if only United could beat Everton then that potential would be fulfilled!
After going in front in the fifth minute, through an Antonio Valencia screamer, United, despite what José Mourinho said in his after-match interview, then spent virtually all of the rest of the game struggling, misplacing passes and generally looking sluggish.
It was only in the 83rd minute, when Mkhitaryan, who had been awful all game, fired home a pass from Lukaku, that the fans could relax a little. The Belgian then scored himself before Anthony Martial rounded things off with a very late penalty.
Pogba’s influence was certainly missed in midfield and United only seemed to improve slightly late on when Ander Herrera came on in place of Mata.
Some consolation can be taken from the fact that Everton are the only team City have failed to beat this season but, in fairness, they were playing quite well then. The general opinion here is that, the way they are playing now, City would also have managed a few goals against them.
So the top of the Premiership remains the same with City at the summit by virtue of their name and United second. Chelsea remain third and Newcastle United are in fourth. Now there’s a team we would welcome into the top four at the end of the season, particularly if it was at the expense of Arsenal or Tottenham Hotspur or maybe even Chelsea.
Nice thought though it may be, it is very unlikely to happen but, by the same token, so was Leicester City winning the Premier League.
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