Manchester City are taking the Binary System to try to retain the Premier League title and other honours. Their 001001 code of recent results, which included a staggering 325 minutes where City didn’t score in open play, have seen the Blues retain the Carabao Cup and has now catapulted them back to the top of the Premier League after Liverpen failed to beat local rivals Everton at Goodison Park.
With fixtures played now equal in numbers, you could say title race is back in Sky Blue hands.
The surface of the sea mirrors the colour of the sky above. It might have been a case of “above us only sky” at Goodison yesterday, but it would certainly have been a grey one for Klopp and the Kop. Along the East Lancs Road, the sky was sky blue and one could be forgiven for thinking the blue tidal wave is once again in evidence.
Liverpen have sacrificed eleven points at a time when City have played three matches a week and they have had the luxury of fortnight’s off in that sequence.
The typical City blue inside me tells me we cannot afford to get carried away, especially as our end-of-season looks considerably trickier than the Scousers’. We have to play the Stretfords and Spuds within 4 days towards the end of April. In and around that there may well be Champions League matches subject of course to qualification.
So in the last week we have seen three teams seemingly afraid of taking City on. As a result, none of them scored a goal and all of them lost. Chelsea set out their stall for penalties from minute one. West Ham all but signposted the route to the back of their net before conceding the penalty converted by Segigol with their goalkeeper, Fabianski probably the only person in the stadium who thought Aguero would shoot to his right. AFC Bournemouth became the only Premier League club ever not to register a goal attempt in ninety minutes.
It was quite a pleasure to see the much-maligned Mahrez score the winner over the weekend. In some eyes this guy can’t do anything right and has never been forgiven for sending his Anfield penalty into orbit. Even in these pages I have said he’ll get you the fifth goal in a 6-0 win, but never the only goal in a 1-0 win.
Well Mr Mahrez, you have made the Pedmachine eat his words this week. Guardiola doesn’t really mind who scores, so long as someone does and the Algerian is the hero of the week at the Etihad.
I must also make a mention of Zinchenko who once again put in an excellent performance. This is becoming a trade mark of the young Ukrainian, especially over the last few matches.
So, for the time being, City top the league. The Blues now need to make sure there are no more slip-ups against lower grade teams. Watford are up next and they are no pushovers, although a full week off will do City’s players a world of good and give more recovery time to the likes of de Jesus and Stones, before the onset of another fixture pile-up.