Nani's goal kept our title hopes alive (Nigel Roddis/Reuters)
If you watched the TV show ‘The Wire” you will be well aware of its twists, turns and intrigue but ask anyone who has followed this years title race and they will tell you we have matched Avon Barksdale and co in terms of drama.
Today was meant to be the day the title race was decided with leaders Chelsea facing Liverpool before we faced Sunderland but at 18.45 questions still remain. Who will win the Premier League this season?
Over at Anfield we were promised by the likes of Ian Rush, John Barnes and “Mr Liverpool” Steve Gerrard that they would not lie down for Chelsea as people had suggested but Gerrard could have fooled me.
In what was one of the slackest pieces of play I have seen in a long time (Titus Bramble eat your heart out!) he played a perfectly weighted ball back to Reina which was intercepted by Didier Drogba and he accepted the gift as an good striker would by putting the ball in the back of the net. I won’t go as far as saying he did it on purpose but having watched it a couple of times and with the sorcery of Andy Gray, it is hard to see how he failed to spot the blue shirt of Drogba before he played that pass.
Having been on top before that goal to me it killed any hope of Liverpool getting anything from it. Lampard made it two and they were lucky the defeat wasn’t by a bigger margin as Liverpool looked leggy. The curse of the Europa League I guess?
As much as the players protested they would not lay down and accept defeat the fans certainly didn’t mind and broke into a chorus of “Are you watching Manchester”, of course we were and I hope you’ll be watching when the draw for the Champions League is made later this year.
As that match finished further up north we set about handling our business in a manner a little more dignified than Liverpool. We looked good (another great performance from Paul Scholes and Wayne Rooney was back to his energetic self after injury) as Nani showed how much he has grown as a player with his goal the deciding factor between us and Sunderland.
We should have killed the game off as we had a number of chances but unfortunately the best of these chances fell to Dimitar Berbatov thus the game was a lot more tense and competitive as it drew to a close than it should have been.
I still stick by my no slagging players off rule but Berbatov constantly makes it hard not to do so. He had a handful of chances and only God knows how his name didn’t appear on the score sheet. His confidence has been shot to pieces and in this current form he is a player we don’t need. If he stays he will have to get back in form because the misses he was guilty of would be condemned had he cost £1m let alone £30m!
It was great to see Owen Hargreaves and his curly hair back. Not sure about the dodgy facial hair but providing he can stay fit he will be an asset to the team.
Today Chelsea put one hand on the Premier League trophy but still the race isn’t over and if Wigan can pull off the kind of upset they did against Arsenal a couple of weeks ago it would be great. Next week I’ll be concentrating on our game against Stoke but with one eye on the Chelsea game but I’ll be honest, I’m not holding my breath.
