Manchester City seized control of the Premier League title on Monday after Vincent Kompany’s first-half header powered them to a 1-0 win over bitter rivals Manchester United.
Kompany headed home from a corner on the stroke of halftime to settle a highly charged title duel at Eastlands, which saw City go top of the table by virtue of their superior goal-difference.
The victory means that wins over Newcastle United and Queens Park Rangers in their remaining games will almost certainly see City claim their first league crown in 44 years, while United would finish the season without a trophy.
Photo: AFP
Kompany’s winner settled an at times ill-tempered duel, which was beamed to a worldwide audience estimated in the hundreds of millions, but it mostly failed to live up to its pre-match hype.
The pressure-cooker nature of the occasion was reflected by an ugly touchline bust-up involving United manager Sir Alex Ferguson and his City counterpart, Roberto Mancini, on 76 minutes.
A visibly enraged Ferguson had to be restrained from confronting Mancini after the Italian had marched into the technical area to complain after Nigel de Jong was booked for a cynical challenge on Danny Welbeck.
Mancini later brushed off the spat and insisted United remained in pole position because of their “easy” remaining games against Swansea City and Sunderland.
“United have easy games, they play against Swansea and Sunderland,” Mancini said. “We have Newcastle and QPR — one plays for Champions League, one plays for relegation. For United it will be easy, but we have two strong teams.”
Meanwhile, Ferguson accused Mancini of “badgering” match officials throughout the game, but admitted his side could have few complaints after a toothless display that saw them fail to muster a clear shot on goal for the first time in three years.
“Mancini was badgering the ref and the fourth official all game. He was complaining about refs all week, but he can’t complain about this one,” Ferguson told the BBC. “I can’t complain about the result, they were more of a threat from counterattacks. It was a damaging result, they are in the driving seat and we are up against it. They only need to win two more games and they win the league, simple as that.”
City captain Kompany celebrated a famous win after a goal that saw the blue half of Manchester seal a home-and-away season double over United.
“It’s far from over and we know that, but to give our fans two wins over United this season ... we have to finish it off and we have to do it over the next two games,” Kompany said.
A scrappy first half saw City dominate possession and territory, but struggle to create clear chances against a United side who had flooded midfield with five men, leaving Wayne Rooney as the lone striker.
Samir Nasri brought the crowd to their feet with a jinking run on 16 minutes which took him beyond the United defense, before the France international played in Carlos Tevez, whose cutback was cleared by Phil Jones.
The fractious mood of the evening was reflected by Ferguson’s angry reaction after Kompany was booked for a clumsy challenge that pole-axed Rooney.
On 25 minutes, Sergio Aguero nearly gave his watching father-in-law Diego Maradona something to cheer about, only for his volley from Joleon Lescott’s flick-on to sail over the crossbar.
The diminutive Argentina attacker was off-target again 10 minutes later, miscuing his shot wide after good work down the right once more by Nasri as City ramped up the pressure.
The moments before halftime marked City’s best spell of the match, with David de Gea needing to be alert to intercept a menacing cross from Gael Clichy, before Tevez produced one surging run from inside his own half that had United scrambling back to cover.
Yet just when it looked as if United had survived the late onslaught, City went ahead.
David Silva curled in a corner from the right and Kompany leapt above Chris Smalling to power an unstoppable header past De Gea.
The second half saw City again control possession and they went close to scoring with late chances for Clichy, Nasri and Aguero.
United, meanwhile, struggled to create any chances of note, their attempts to get back in the game foundering on a superb defensive effort by City, with Kompany and Lescott unyielding throughout.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with