United are playing with fire
With these two new points lost, the Red Devils may well see a place in the Champions League slipping away from them.
They go back, of course, to fifth place, with 40 points, tied on points with West Ham, fourth and last qualified virtual. But they trail Tottenham – Chelsea 0: 1: emergency doctor use in the final, Antonio Rüdiger with back goal – football”>Arsenal one point behind them with two games less, Tottenham four points behind them with three games less and Wolverhampton six points behind them with two games less.
Impossible, after this match, not to think back to the elimination in the FA Cup against Middlesbrough (1-1, 8-7 on pens), Friday of last week, or to the 1-1 against Burnley, Tuesday, as long as the scenarios are similar.
The main difference is that Southampton were threatening the whole game, but the Red Devils created enough clean chances to win this game.
From the seventh minute, Jadon Sancho launched Cristiano Ronaldo into the opposing area. The Portuguese dribbled past Ben Forster and kicked softly towards the empty goal and his attempt was stopped before the line by Frenchman Romain Perraud.
United still found the fault with Sancho, perfectly served by Marcus Rashford on a two-pass counter (1-0, 21st).
But the score of 1-0 at the break did not bode well and the fears of Mancunian supporters materialized when Che Adams, taking advantage of a huge alignment error from Luke Shaw, left to deceive David de Gea with the help from the post (1-1, 48th).
The only progress compared to the meetings against Boro and Burnley: Manchester did not give up.
A goal from Ronaldo, canceled for offside (73rd) and a header from Harry Maguire could have given the victory in extremis (90th + 3), but the draw is not an undeserved result for the Saints.
Sterling and City go for a walk
With a hat-trick from Raheem Sterling, Manchester City consolidated their lead and took another step towards the title.
His move to penultimate Norwich was certainly not the most perilous confrontation, but this new show of force shows how much the hopes of Liverpool, 2nd at 12 points with two games less, or Chelsea, 3rd at 16 points with one game less, to see the Citizens weaken, seem vain.
We can not say that the Canaries did not sell their skin dearly but the opener by Sterling in the 31st minute had already almost decided the fate of the meeting.
In 19 matches in which they have opened the scoring in the league this season, the Sky Blues have won 19 times in the end.
“The most important thing is the way we played, our behavior and our concentration were very good. It always looks simple, but it’s difficult to do our job and we managed to do it once. again”, satisfied Pep Guardiola after the match.
“We hung on, we missed a few good chances, but we also had good times. It was not a one-way street,” said Norwich coach Dean Smith.
From the start of the second period, Phil Fonden doubled the lead and the game changed forever. Sterling, in the 70th and last minute of regulation time, drove the point home.
In the other afternoon matches, Everton won their first league match under Frank Lampard against Leeds (3-0), which allowed them to extend their lead over Norwich to 5 lengths, the first relegation.
