Around the English Premier League – Round 30

Manchester United has reached its third week at the head of the Premier League and with its triumph at home has open up a bit more the gap between it and City.
By Camilla Mancini

On Saturday Manchester City visited Britannia Stadium to meet with Stoke City for their away match and after a pretty plain first half they finished in a 1-1 draw. Although the Sky Blues toughed it up in second half, at 59’ Peter Crouch grabbed the lead for the Potters with the help of Jermaine Pennant. First Asmir Begovic fired the ball with a powerful hit that Pennant intercepted and immediately headed to Crouch, who then struck it with a superb shot that send the ball over Joe Hart and straight to the bottom of the goal.

Right away Mancini responded by sending in Adam Johnson to substitute Silva, but even though Johnson made a couple of dangerous intents, he was stop each time. At 72’ the Citizens’ boss made another change calling in Carlos Tevez; however the Argentinean didn’t performed as well as in the last game. Instead the one in charge of leveled the scoreboard was Yaya Toure with a potent shot from long range within the last 15 minutes of the encounter.

The 1-1 left Roberto Mancini quiet upset and even made him keep for himself whatever thoughts he had about the performance of his men and how it affects the race they have with United for the championship title. The point earned by the Sky Blues placed them on the first position for more than a day, while they were waiting for the Red Devils fixture against the Cottagers on Monday. Unfortunately for Mancini’s side its nemesis won that match and distanced itself a bit more from City, which now has 70 points while United holds 73 points.

Manchester United is looking for its twentieth Premier League title and the winning streak that is experiencing is helping them secure the first spot -at least for now, because their track in the standings throughout this season is kind of similar to theirs 2009/10 season track, in which they fell within the last 3 fixtures. Be that as it may, on Monday the Red Devils grabbed their 12th triumph at home, beating a Fulham that stood up firmly and only were unable to stop one goal. At 42’ John Evans caught the ball following a close intent from Ashley Young, but when Evans was in the move to score, he realized that Wayne Rooney had a better chance to score, so passed it over and Wayne fired it to the bottom of the net.

On the other hand it looks like Tottenham might be reinforcing, although at the end of the encounter it couldn’t score once, at least they defended their goal perfectly from the tough Chelsea and even had the best chances to score. Indeed this London derby was very even and therefore the 0-0 result it was somewhat fair. The extra point saved the Blues from losing the fifth place to Newcastle that tied them with 50 points on the standings, while the Spurs ended up 3 points away from Arsenal, still with good chances to recover the third place. However it won’t be easy for Harry Redknapp’s men, for at this point they need Arsenal to make a mistake, while they have to be undefeatable –instead, that’s how the Gunners have been lately.

The other matches from round 30: Swansea 0-2 Everton; Sunderland 3-1 QPR; Norwich 2-1 Wolves; Liverpool 1-2 Wigan; Bolton 2-1 Blackburn; Arsenal 3-0 Aston Villa; West Bromwich 1-3 Newcastle.