Blues missed defenders

The CIty kit boss and former Latics star writes every week for Chron Sport
THE race for the Barclays Premier League title is wide open again following Manchester City’s 1-0 defeat at Swansea and United’s 2-0 triumph over West Brom, which took the Red Devils back to the top of the table.

We looked jaded during our loss at the Liberty Stadium and have 10 games left to return to the summit.

It was not ideal to go into the game without skipper Vincent Kompany and fellow defenders Joleon Lescott and Pablo Zabaleta.

The trio always give us a solid look at the back and we inevitably missed them in Wales. Hopefully all three players will be back soon because when you are challenging for honours, you need every top player at your disposal.

One consolation is the fact that our fate is still in our own hands — if we win all 10 matches, which includes a mouthwatering home clash with United at the end of April — then we will be crowned champions.

But we don’t want to look too far ahead as there is a lot of action still to come and hopefully another twist.

United will be confident in their next league game — a trip to relegation-haunted Wolves — but you just don’t know what is around the corner and it is a funny old game.

We entertain Sporting Lisbon on Thursday, looking to overturn the 1-0 reverse we suffered in Portugal last week in the Europa League.

That is followed by a return to league duty, which sees us host Chelsea.

We will have to be on top of our game because there is a chance Chelsea are about to go on a decent run. That is so often the way when a club part with their manager.

Andre Villas-Boas was dismissed and replaced by Roberto Di Matteo, for the rest of the season at least.

I think the writing was on the wall for Villas-Boas for some time, as results were just not good enough for such a big club and he seemed to be learning on the job.

Now the Chelsea lads have been given a fresh start.

Maybe it would have been better to play them two or three weeks ago, but we cannot choose the fixtures!

It is a huge game, and one of the hardest of the 10 we have left, and when we play them it always tends to be a tight affair.

Hopefully we rediscover our goalscoring form against Sporting on Thursday and take some good form into the Chelsea game.