Two second half goals from Yaya Touré kept Manchester City are on the verge of winning their first league title since 1968.
The title race will go down to the last game of the season after Manchester United beat Swansea City 2-0, but it would be a monumental collapse if City did not win the title now.
In a tense match at St. James Park, Newcastle frustrated and harried City for 70 minutes before Yaya Toure broke the deadlock with a superb shot from the edge of the box.
(Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)
Huge upset in the Premier League title race tonight as Manchester United lost 1-0 to Wigan, and Manchester City took advantage of the slip by their quiet neighbors to beat West Brom and move within five points of the league leader.
Wigan started the day in the relegation zone and not many of their fans gave them much of a chance against United, especially since they had never taken as much as a point off United in the Premier League. However, Roberto Martínez’s side totally outplayed United on the right and got the result they deserved when men Shaun Maloney scored off a short corner in the 50th minute. The win moved Wigan two points clear of the bottom three.
Newcastle United‘s magical season continues as they beat Swansea City 2-0 today, a win that has the Toon Army dreaming of Europe. The win lifted Newcastle above Chelsea into fifth place in the league, just two points off Arsenal and Tottenham in the race for third.
Both Newcastle goals were scored by Papiss Demba Cisse, who is fast becoming the signing of the season. Cisse joined Newcastle from German team Freiburg in January for a reported 10 million pounds and has now scored nine goals in his first eight games for Newcastle.
Tottenham Hotspur ended a five-match winless streak in the Premier League by beating Swansea City 3-1 at White Hart Lane, and as a result moved level on points with third-placed Arsenal.
Spurs took the lead on 19 minutes as Rafael van der Vaart converted a stylish, sidefooted effort from just outside the area after a sliding Ashley Williams had cut out Gareth Bale’s near-post cross.
But Swansea kept playing their impressive football and it was not a surprise when Gylfi Sigurdsson equalised on 59 minutes, however, hitting a bouncing volley into the bottom-left corner from the edge of the area following Wayne Routledge’s lay-off.
While a lot of attention was focused on battle for fourth place at Stamford Bridge today, there were some really big wins for teams involved at the other end of the season.
The biggest win of the day had to Wigan Athletic beating Liverpool 2-1 at Anfield. In four days Kenny Dalglish’s side have now lost to teams in the bottom three of the table.
Wigan went ahead whenShaun Maloney calmly converted a penalty on the half-hour mark following a high challenge by Martin Skrtel on Victor Moses.
Manchester City received a big blow to their league title challenge in the weekend after picking up a 1-0 defeat against Swansea City which forced the Eastlands to hand over their number one seat being taken by Manchester United.
Having only 10 games left and some difficult games ahead, many people begin to raise doubts over Roberto Mancini’s team chances in regaining control over the league table, but Mancini remains positive and urging to his players not to stop their effort.
Manchester United have replaced Manchester City at the top of the Premier League for the first time since October.
At one point this season, City had a seven-point lead over their Manchester rivals. But lead has vanished, and City now trail the champions by a point with 10 games to go.
City went into the day with a two-point lead over United, but that lead vanished as they lost 1-0 in Wales to Swansea City.
Manchester City moved three points clear at the top of the Premier League thanks to a convincing 3-0 win at home over Fulham.
Heading into the Fulham match a lot of questions were being asked about a City side that had lost four of their eight matches in 2012, exiting the FA and League Cups and seeing Manchester United draw level with them on points at the top of the Premier League.
Newcastle’s hopes of taking advantage of Chelsea‘s draw at Norwich were stopped by a five-goal second-half blitz from Fulham as they lost 5-2 at Fulham.
Fulham were poor in the first-hald and it was no surprise that Newcastle scored first thanks to a Danny Guthrie thunderbolt from outside the area.
Not sure what Martin Jol said at half-time, but it was a completely different Fulham side that took the pitch in the second half. Fulham got a hat-trick from Clint Dempsey and penalties from Danny Murphy and Bobby Zamora as the Cottagers picked up three big points.
Chelsea moved back up to fourth place in the Premier League after picking up a 2-1 away victory against Wolves, although it took an 89th-minute winner by Frank Lampard to end Chelsea’s four-match winless run.
Stephen Ward thought he had done enough to earn Wolves their fourth consecutive draw when he cancelled out Ramires’s second-half effort with just five minutes remaining, but Lampard pounced to take the Blues a point above Arsenal, who failed to reclaim fourth spot after losing 2-1 at Fulham.
