Were Newcastle United the last team to go down as heavily at home as Manchester United did today and still win the title?
Well that was in 1908, when we hammered the Mags even more comprehensively – 9-1 – at St James’ Park and they just shrugged it off to finish top anyway.
Things have changed in football. Surely after today’s mauling by Man City, 6-1 (going on 9-1 from what I saw of the procession of City chances following Jonny Evans’s correct sending off), United’s odds on keeping the Premier title will lengthen a bit. Probably already have.
And where do we fit in to this? Well, we have United away ourselves, next but one game. If they play anything like they did today, we have to be in with a chance; they looked very ordinary indeed, some of the players seemingly promoted way above their levels of competence.
OK, Salut! is getting carried away. Most of us, delighted with a win of any kind, are setting our sights no further ahead than Saturday and Villa at home.
Back-to-back wins are something we haven’t seen since January. After the victory at Bolton, confidence should be high for Saturday, But is it completely beyond credibility that a mighty performance one week later could get us something from Old Trafford, too? Or do we just get the backlash?
Maybe Scott the Red can come back here to tell us what sort of a chance he gives us of adding to United’s misery …
But remember who we have
It was a completely shambolic display. The Man Utd players created the impression that they really didn’t care. That team won’t win the league this season (Utd that is). The worrying thing for them is that City slaughtered them without ever really having to be great. It could have quite easily (and should have) been 9 or 10. Dzeko could well have had a hat trick coming on as a second half sub if he’d kept some composure, rather than looking as if he was impersonating Colin West.