Wednesday, March 9, 2016

YET ANOTHER BIG FINISH REQUIRED

Football often reflects life these days, in that absolutely nothing can happen quickly enough to satisfy our immediate need for up-to-date news. With this in mind, the report in Tuesdays Mirror that excitedly revealed which managers were on the shortlist to succeed Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, might be seen as just a touch premature.http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/manchester-city-already-looking-pep-7515034

The Spaniard, after all, hasn’t even touched down in Manchester yet and will not do so for another couple of months.

"And we can confirm Leicester have lost"
This ludicrous getting-ahead-of-ourselves masks the fact that the English football season is now reaching its most critical phase and City, whether the Mirror likes it or not, still capably managed by the phlegmatic Manuel Pellegrini, are clinging to the hope that a season of mounting drama can still deliver more of the same between now and mid May. If it does deliver such a finish, we may well be yet to see the greatest drama of 2015-16.

While certain areas of the press busy themselves speculating on who will be City’s manager in 2019, the rest of us can quietly contemplate the club’s chances of resurrecting a proper title challenge in March and April of 2016.

The signs were there last weekend, in demolishing a passive and admittedly quite feeble Aston Villa that all is not yet lost. http://www.espnfc.com/barclays-premier-league/match/422376/manchester-city-aston-villa/report

The ten point gap to leaders Leicester will take some closing, but there are some encouraging signs as City prepare to visit another of the Premier League’s endangered species this weekend in Norwich City.


Firstly, the news that, by the time the latest international break is complete, Pellegrini will have Samir Nasri, Fabian Delph and, better news still, Kevin de Bruyne back in the fold and ready for tentative inclusion in first team matters for the last eight games of the season. De Bruyne's eight goals and eight assists so far mean his inclusion in the run-in will be particularly welcome.

You can read the rest of this article on ESPNFC's pages 

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