Samir’s a City slicker

by CARL ELDRIDGE Cesc Fabregas was given the man-of-the-match award after yesterday’s 3-0 thumping of 10-man Manchester City but there were other more worthy candidates in my opinion. Not that Cesc wasn’t at the heart of everything. For me the honour could have easily gone to Samir Nasri or Marouane Chamakh. Nasri could be a massive player for us this season. And, whisper it, I thought Lucasz Fabianksi had a good game, too.

Good to see Bendy bulge the back of the net as well after his long lay off — except me and Keith didn’t see it as we had legged it by then to catch our flight back to Gatters.

AW was chuffed at the result, naturally. He said: “I’m very pleased because they looked like they have matured. We’ve matured in the sense of negotiating the difficulties of the game in an intelligent way.

“That means not getting a red card, keeping the ball well, being patient when it was needed. Collectively, we completely dominated the game. It was a good performance maybe a little bit under special circumstances. It was important to get a win in a big place, to strengthen the belief of the squad and continue our march forward. We were calm and showed intelligence and put in the performance we needed to put in against 10 men.”

On Nasri he added: “He is becoming more efficient and I think he’s become stronger physically and you judge a player on his numbers. He got a goal and an assist and that’s what you want from a player with a lot of talent like he has. He’s a complete player because he can run with the ball, he’s quick and he’s a clinical finisher now. At 23, your career starts at the top level.”

As for Cesc, he has dismissed the fact that City were reduced to ten men so early. He said: “If there had been 15 versus 11, we still would have won. We played some outstanding football at times and it is very difficult to stop us. We also kept our composure. It’s too early to talk about the title, but Chelsea have still to play the big teams, so we will see how they do.”

Next up: the Geordies away in the Carling (a bit more important to us this season) Cup…

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