On a weekend when both Manchester clubs, City and United, won away in North London, Robbie Keane celebrated his first start for his on-loan club Aston Villa with two goals. Keane admitted that he had mixed emotions after scoring twice in Villa’s 3-2 away win over Wolves at Molineux, the ground where the Dubliner started his English League career.
City needed an injury time penalty from their controversial Italian Mario Balotelli to beat Spurs 3-2 at the Etihad Stadium, while United won 2-1 away to Arsenal to keep their neighbours’ lead at the top to just three points. Elsewhere, Chelsea’s expensive signing Fernando Torres failed to find the net in the 0-0 away draw against Norwich. It’s now over 15 hours since the Spaniard scored for club or country. We hope he is not saving his goals for the Euro 2012 finals.
Ireland’s Jonathan Walters missed a penalty as Stoke were beaten 2-1 at home by West Brom. Albion ‘keeper Ben Foster claimed he had studied Walters’ penalties in recent games and knew he was going to go to his, the keeper’s, right. Sunderland’s form continues to improve under Martin O’Neill. The Black Cats beat Swansea 2-0 on Saturday to move up to 10th place in the league. That’s good going for a club that was hovering near the relegation zone before O’Neill took over. Liverpool, who hold a one goal advantage going into tonight’s (25th) second leg of their League Cup semifinal against Man City, went down 3-1 away to Bolton. The win lifted Bolton out of the relegation zone, which is now occupied by: Wigan, Wolves and Blackburn.
A good weekend for Celtic, who stretched their lead at the top of the SPL to four points following a 2-0 away win over St Mirren. Second placed Rangers could only draw 1-1 at home to Aberdeen.
