While the two Manchester clubs continue to thrash everything in their sights, Arsenal could only scrape a 1-0 win over Swansea courtesy of a bad mistake by their goalkeeper.
Elsewhere, the other London clubs who might like to think of themselves as in the title race, Chelsea and Spurs, scraped unspectacular wins over Sunderland and Wolves respectively. And Liverpool lost at Stoke.
As important as it was to get three points this weekend, the performance against the newly promoted side left much to be desired, but it’s understandable that there were nerves amongst the players, and a certain amount of bedding in that will be needed for our many new signings. It would have been crazy to expect a big win on this occasion and the match itself does not reflect too badly on this team.
It is more the performance of the two teams at the top that show, so painfully, that we are probably closer to teams like Swansea than to the leaders at the moment.
It’s early days yet, but I foresee something of a La Liga situation developing here in the Premier League, with United and City in a Galactico league of their own at the top, making easy work of everyone else, just as Real and Barca have done in Spain over the last couple of seasons, and in stark contrast to the trend over here, where it has been very even in recent times.
However, the spending power of City has propelled them above the likes of ourselves, Chelsea, Spurs and Liverpool. If you can have Edin Dzeko scoring four quality goals one week, and Sergio Aguero netting a hat trick the next, and have expert technicians like David Silva and Samir Nasri linking up in midfield, then you’re not far off footballing heaven. It’s taken them a couple of years to do it, but the new kids on the block have finally found a balance on the pitch to match that of their enviable bank balance; they have built a dream team.
Meanwhile, United have been lucky enough to get Wayne Rooney back to top form, partly due to signing Ashley Young, who compliments Rooney perfectly. The football they play isn’t as pleasing to watch as ours once was, or as City’s now is, but it’s so fast and so dynamic, that they can score at any time, from any position.
Ferguson knows they were lucky to win the league last year. They were the best of a bad bunch with a rubbish away record and benefited hugely from our collapse and from constant favouritism from referees. Despite winning the league, they were distinctly second best in the Champions League final and Fergie knew there was work to be done. There’s no one in the game who does motivation better, and he’s sorted out their lacklustre away performances from last year, where they never came close to producing a performance that could see them win 5-0 at a place like Bolton.
As for the rest, well, Arsenal are in transition and we all know that. Many changes have taken place in the team this summer, a lot of them last-minute, and I just hope we’re good enough and consistent enough to edge Spurs and Liverpool for fourth spot. Chelsea, I imagine, will take third place, but I can’t see them being real challengers. They have an excellent young manager but he couldn’t get in the players he wanted this summer and has inherited the same ageing Mourinho squad that Ancelotti had to deal with.
In some ways it’s nicer being out of the title race in September than in April or May…it’s strangely comforting just knowing where we are, even if it’s not where we’d ideally want to be.
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