Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
The run has finally come to an end and to be fair to Manchester City it was nothing short of an incredible one. 18 successive Premier League wins and still they are unbeaten this season after their first 20 matches, they have dropped just four points from a possible sixty.
They were perhaps fortunate that they did not pick up their first defeat of the season last Sunday when they traveled to Crystal Palace. Not only did they fail to make it 19 wins on the spin and equal the record set by Bayern Munich when Pep Guardiola was in charge of the Bundesliga giants but there is every chance they may have had their own invincible moment.
That was because Raheem Sterling was adjudged to have bundled over Wilfried Zaha in the penalty box with just minutes remaining and referee Jon Moss had no qualms in awarding a spot kick. However the effort taking by Luka Milivojevic was an incredibly poor one as the Serbian saw his effort saved by Ederson.
Is that the moment similar to when Ruud Van Nisterlrooy cannoned a penalty against the bar when facing Arsenal in the 2003/04 for Manchester City? Pep Guardiola may have left South London with his teams unbeaten record unscathed but his players certainly did not.
The draw was something of a war of attrition as first Gabriel Jesus was taken off in the first half with the injury he sustained now set to see him miss out somewhere between one to two months, while there was also the hammer blow of Kevin De Bruyne’s injury at the hands of Jason Puncheon.
The Belgian international was looking to break quickly after the above mentioned penalty miss but Crystal Palace’s Jason Puncheon handed out what can only be a labeled as a reducer as the City star was stretched off the pitch with the Eagles midfielder somehow only being awarded a booking for his disgraceful efforts.
Tonight City look to make it 21 straight Premier League games this season without defeat when the table toppers play host to a Watford side who need to be careful they do not have a third post Christmas slump in a row as the Hornets have lost five of their last six outings.
Their last outing of 2017 saw them minutes away from making it successive wins after a Boxing Day win over Leicester but while they may have taken a first half lead against a Swansea side who were being led by a Portuguese manager of their own for the first time they conspired to throw it all away late on.
That is because with just four minutes left, Swansea started their fightback thanks to a goal from Jordan Ayew and then the comeback was complete when Luciano Narsingh turned the game on its head and gave the South Wales outfit an unlikely win.
Nothing short of frustration for Watford boss Marco Silva whose own value has plummeted in the past few weeks with the Hertfordshire in the midst of a rut that although currently sees them lie in the relative safety of 10th in the table fans of the club know that they have been here before.
The clubs immediately below them are picking up points slowly but surely and the gap between Watford and the teams in the bottom half of the table is shrinking by the week, if this bleak run of fixtures continues then it surely will not be long before we once again witness another slide down the table after the turn of the year.
The last time these two sides met it was an emphatic 6-0 win for Manchester City at Vicarage Road, the fact that both Gabriel Jesus and Kevin De Bruyne are out injured may well be something of a saving grace for Marco Silva’s men but that said I still cannot see anything other than a return to winning ways for Pep Guardiola’s tackle.
