Arsenal and City rumble on at the top, Newcastle take control of the CL chase while further down the league it was Sacking Sunday…
Winners
Newcastle
A very good time to produce their best performance of the season. That’s three wins in a row now after a mini-slump that left this fine season of theirs in danger of yielding ‘only’ Europa or Conference football.
This was the best of the three, clearly, and the most important as they regained full control of their own top-four destiny. As much as anything else, they’ve dragged United back sufficiently that it’s now three, four or five teams fighting for two spots rather than two, three or four fighting for one.
Newcastle No. 9s
They love a No. 9 at Newcastle, don’t they? No other clubs love strikers. Only Newcastle. The Newcastle fans. Taking their tops off and loving strikers. That’s what they do. The tops and the strikers. The number nines.
Still, though. They were treated to not one but two fine performances on Sunday. Alexander Isak was superb from the start, and was unfortunate that his immense all-round efforts had caught up with him by the time United deployed their one-man defence joker card and so it was left to Callum Wilson to step off the bench and Shearer Marcus Rashford out of the way before Shearering his pinpoint header off the post for a fully deserved and match-sealing second Newcastle goal of a wonderful afternoon.
Manchester City without Haaland
Remains hilarious that it’s possible even to make the argument about City being better without the fella who scores all of the goals at all, never mind that the evidence is so frequently compelling. Watching Liverpool be swept aside in the second half by a parade of clever City players doing clever things was a reminder of what City were before Haaland. In the Premier League (if emphatically not the Champions League, which is this season’s real quiz) they really were a more effective team without the brilliant Norwegian battering ram.
Manchester City without Cancelo
This one is more straightforward and represents Pep Guardiola’s big win of a challenging (by his and City’s standards) season. Joao Cancelo is a wonderfully gifted footballer but Guardiola’s decisive victory in their personality clash has been to City’s benefit in far more clear-cut fashion than the Haaland weirdness. Cancelo’s last 10 City games threw up four defeats, a red card and several bookings. City have nine wins and five clean sheets in…
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