Manchester City’s 3:3 draw with Tottenham heightened the intrigue in the English Championship

Tottenham, which has been sluggish lately, has heightened the intrigue in the English Championship by playing away to a 3:3 draw with Manchester City. In the Spanish championship, Barcelona stayed close to the leaders thanks to a difficult victory – 1:0 – over Atlético, and in the Italian championship, Inter remained at the top, defeating Napoli – 3:0.

English Championship

The next round of the English championship was crowned with a match that is etched in the memory for a long time. Well, or, as Manchester City coach Pep Guardiola put it, from the category of those who “make football better.” However, it is clear that he uttered this phrase without hiding his irritation – for a completely understandable reason.

For the flagship of English football, this match seemed like an excellent chance to finally take three points after two consecutive draws – with Chelsea and Liverpool. Tottenham, with new coach Ange Postecoglou, for a long time looked like a very trendy team that was doomed to fight for medals, but at the turn of autumn and winter they found themselves in a real crisis. Before the clash with Manchester City, he suffered three defeats in a row, and entered the match with the current national champion and winner of the Champions League, having lost a dozen core players due to injuries and disqualifications – at least, its extended version.

And so Tottenham, instead of giving up, started a crazy fight with the Manchester team. There was a place in it for the most screwed-up moments (primarily we are talking about the hosts), brilliant attacks, terrible defensive mistakes and as many as six goals. Two of them were scored in the end. Jack Grealish seemed to have secured Manchester City’s victory, putting them ahead with just over ten minutes left in the game. But this time was enough for the Londoners to win back thanks to a goal from Dejan Kulusevski.

And this match also had a sharp ending, filled to the brim with scandal and emotions. At the end of stoppage time, Grealish was already preparing to shoot at the goal, certainly to ruin Tottenham, when referee Simon Hooper whistled, calling a foul on Erling Haaland, who had just passed him, and saving the guests. Hooper then found himself in the middle of a round dance of Manchester football players who, judging by their faces, would have torn the referee to pieces if given free rein, and Guardiola and Haaland at the press conference and on social networks hinted extremely transparently about how they treat the referee and his decision, prompting the BBC and The Guardian to predict that their behavior will still have to be reviewed by disciplinary authorities.

After this draw, Manchester City is in a position that is unlikely to warm the soul and heart of its fans. He is only third, a point behind Liverpool and three behind Arsenal. The Manchester competitors won their matches of the 14th round, which were also difficult. Liverpool beat Fulham 4:3, and Arsenal beat Wolverhampton 2:1.

Spanish Championship

Barcelona, ​​which is chasing Real Madrid and Girona who are four points ahead of them, won an extremely important victory in the 15th round, beating another favorite, Atlético. And an important nuance gives it a special charm.

Barcelona’s hero that day was Joao Felix, a player who was on loan from Atlético this season. What you need to know about him is that Felix, who had huge problems realizing his potential at the Madrid club, never really hid the fact that he did not have particularly warm feelings for him and his coach Diego Simeone. And if he wanted to take revenge on them for what he perceived as a lack of trust, then the revenge turned out to be successful.

In this match, Joao Felix managed to do everything: spin up attacks, rock Atlético defenders with jerks and dribbles, and open up to his partners’ passes. And in the fact that it was he who had the chance to score the only goal, there was, of course, the highest justice.

Italian Championship

The central match of the 14th round of the Italian championship turned out to be insipid. Champion Napoli, which at the end of November changed coaches – Rudi Garcia and Walter Mazzarri – and seemed to have perked up, was expected to give worthy resistance to the Milanese, but they tore apart their opponents on the road with a score of 3:0. At the same time, the Neapolitans controlled the ball more often and shot at goal at least as often. But Inter looked much more rational and created an order of magnitude more urgency.

After this round, the Milanese team leads the standings. Juventus is two points behind her. Napoli misfired and dropped to fifth place.

German Championship

In the German championship, the 13th round was spoiled by bad weather. Due to snowfall, the game did not take place there, in which Bayern was supposed to host Union, which had slipped into the basement of the standings. Meanwhile, if the Munich team had taken, in theory, the usual three points this weekend, they would have caught up with the tournament leader.

The leader is Bayer, which met at home with another giant, Borussia Dortmund, and lost very quickly. Then Leverkusen suffered terribly, trying to take advantage of the chances that appeared to them from time to time, but they still achieved their goal in the second half after Victor Boniface’s shot.

French Championship

In the 14th round of the French Championship, PSG extended its winning streak in the tournament to seven matches, defeating Le Havre 2-0, despite the early dismissal of goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma in the tenth minute. The Parisians are firmly at the top of the table – four points behind Nice and six behind Monaco, whose Russian midfielder Alexander Golovin impressed with some statistical indicators in the 2:0 home match against Montpellier. 99 touches of the ball, eight passes, after which his partners struck, 29 accurate passes into the attack zone, into the so-called final third of the field – all these are his personal records. The set should have been topped off by a goal, but Golovin didn’t get along with it, although he once hit the post.

Alexey Dospehov