End of the road for City’s title bid

Big Game – £10 on 7/9 at bwin

Arsenal V Manchester City (Sunday 16.00) – Arsenal to win [draw-no-bet]

Assuming Manchester United beat Queens Park Rangers at Old Trafford earlier in the day, which they will, Manchester City will walk out at the Emirates Stadium eight points behind their rivals and feeling dejected.

Until last weekend’s sloppy 3-3 draw with Sunderland, City had been imperious at home. However, their away form has been far from breathtaking.

Roberto Mancini’s men have dropped 20 points in their 15 away Premier League games this season and have not won in their last three on the road in all competitions.

City are not prolific scorers on their travels. The last time they netted more than once in the league away from the Etihad Stadium was 11 games ago on November 5.

Arsenal, meanwhile are in excellent shape at home, winning their last six matches in North London comprehensively and averaging 3.83 goals-per-game in the process.

Robin van Persie: 20 goals in his last 18 games at the Emirates.

Fairplay

Anorak’s bet – £10 on 10/11 at bwin

Swansea City V Manchester City (Sunday 14.00) – Less than 3.5 bookings

These pair have two of the Premier League’s cleanest noses and are second and fourth respectively in the Fair Play table. Prior to their last outing, in which Nathan Dyer was harshly dismissed for a ‘eager’ challenge, Swansea had only received three bookings in seven games. While, Aleksandar Kolarov is the only Man City player to have been shown a yellow card in the Blues’ last four League games.

Nice boys.

Dirty Arsenal

Anorak’s bet – £10 on 6/4 at bwin

Arsenal V Tottenham Hotspur (Sunday 13.30) – Most team bookings: Arsenal

Mike Dean will be in charge at the Emirates on Sunday. The Gunners have not won in their last 11 games which the Wirral official has refereed.

A more relevant statistic is that Dean has shown more home yellow cards (32) this season than any other Premier League referee. Although he has also shown 33 yellows to away sides, he seems to be much less affected by crowd pressure than the majority of his contemporaries.

Arsenal (46) have been given 16 more yellow cards than their North London rivals this season. Furthermore, Gunners players have been shown 22 bookings at home, while Spurs, who top the fairplay table, have only seen 18 on the road.

Only Bolton Wanderers (five) have seen red more time than Arsene Wenger’s bad boys (four) in the Premier League this term.  Meanwhile, Younes Kaboul’s dismissal at Stoke City in December was his side’s only major misdemeanor to date.

Old foes set to collide.