What is going on at Newcastle?
After last week’s win against Huddersfield took us to the brink of safety in the Premier League, I was expecting a quiet end to the season and a bottom half finish. That was until we went to Leicester, champions only two seasons ago, and beat them 2-1 on their home turf. While they haven’t been the force they were that title-winning season ever since, it is still a pretty tough game, especially as they trounced us in the reverse fixture just before Christmas.
Things are starting to look up for Toon fans now. Our place in the top flight for next season has been secured, we’ve won three games on the bounce and the potential takeover of the club may be back on the cards. Hopefully, we don’t suffer from complacency now and finish the season strongly. Who knows, we may end up with a top-half finish, which was unthinkable only a few months ago.
The wheels are coming off
At the turn of the year, everyone was talking about Man City winning the quadruple and dominating English football for years to come. That doesn’t look so certain anymore. For starters, they were knocked out of the FA Cup by Wigan (of League 1), which was a massive surprise in itself. The worst was yet to come.
At half-time in the Manchester derby at the weekend, they were 2-0 up and cruising to their first league title in four years, against their most bitter rivals. What happened in the second-half was unthinkable. City collapsed, conceding three goals within 16 minutes and losing the game 3-2, a severe embarrassment for all connected with the club. They were preparing for a party to celebrate in the face of their Manchester neighbours, and got slapped in the face.
Then it got worse still. After being humbled 3-0 by Liverpool in the first-leg of their Champions League quarter-final tie, City had to bounce back in the return leg and rekindle their form from earlier this season. Instead, they lost for the third game in a row, 2-1 at home to another up and coming title challenger for next season. They again took the lead but threw it away to come away with nothing. Liverpool won the tie 5-1 on aggregate, I wonder what odds you could have got on that when they were drawn together? I suspect they would have been rather large. City will still win the league this season, but their worrying dip in form gives hope to everyone else that they aren’t a shoe-in to win the league next season, and hopefully we’ll see a more exciting battle for the title in the coming years.