Michael Owen caps a memorable derby with the winning goal (Sky Sports images)Emmanuel Adebayor's deplorable actions against Arsenal may have haunted Manchester City's chance of defeating arch-city rivals Manchester United as the Reds won a thrilling derby game 4-3 to move within one point of league leaders Chelsea.
Adebayor's ability to hold up the ball under intense pressure was sorely missed in such a pressured game and atmosphere. Although Craig Bellamy grabbed two of City's goals, strike partner Carlos Tevez failed to live up to the great standards that his employers expected when they paid some £25.5m for his services. It is quite funny that the Argentine is renown for pleasing the crowd with his willingness to run and chase a ball rather than his goal-scoring abilities, and maybe is something he would like to rectify.
United's Wayne Rooney scored in the 2nd minute with great ease finishing at Shay Given's near post to put the champions in front, but will have been surprised seeing the huge hole in City's central defence, where you could possibly fit a bus through.
Man United were in control of the early stages, creating chances. But Man City slowly came into the game and was soon gifted an equiliser when goalkeeper haplessly attempted to grasp the ball from Carlos Tevez, who square passed to Gareth Barry to calmly slot the ball into an empty United net.
Darren Fletcher retook the lead for United with a strong header down to Given's left from the impressive Ryan Gigg's cross, but City replied through Bellamy. United pressed on, cbut only went on to waste chance after chance, before the two scorers then took another goal each to make it 3-3. By the time Belllamy celebrated, the match was in the 1st minute of the four allocated injury time minutes, with referee Mark Clattenburg deciding to add an extra two minutes on top for an apparently short goal celebration.
Man City had only themselves to blame. Watching Tevez hold up the ball quite amateurishly in the fifth minute of added time allowed Carrick to pick a beautiful pass to substitute Michael Owen, who stroked the ball past Given as United claimed the points.
Talking of title protaganists, I was very impressed with Chelsea's form against Tottenham. Spurs was humiliated at Stamford Bridge by 3-0, but was unlucky with a penalty claim by Robbie Keane, who I thought was played a pedestrian role behind Jermain Defoe and found little joy in his personal on-field battle against Michael Essien.
Chelsea's strength, energy and enthusiasm on the field was a sight to behold. Didier Drogba had yet another influential game, and gave opposition centre-backs Ledley King and Sebastian Bassong such a torrid game, bot had to come off the field of play injured, but possibly the latter not as the result from the Ivorian's play.
My beloved West Ham gave another fantastic performance Saturday evening against an indifferent Liverpool team. Although critics can list superlatives of Fernando Torres' performance, and rightly so of his match-winning quality, but Reds' centre-half Jamie Carragher did not give me any degree of confidence that Liverpool could come up against creditable top teams and win.
The Premier League is shaping up to be a very exciting season, other than watching Portsmouth at this present time.
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