Forever Blue With Ian Cheeseman: Premier League Title To Be Decided On Final Day

Liverpool’s victory at Southampton on Tuesday night sets up a highly emotional and potentially dramatic last day of the season at the Etihad Stadium and Anfield.

Manchester City face Steven Gerrard’s Aston Villa while Liverpool take on Wolves. It’s almost exactly a decade since Sergio Aguero scored that famous goal to beat QPR to clinch City’s first Premier League title win. 

Three of the players who started that glorious May day, David Silva, Vincent Kompany and Sergio Aguero have been lionised with statues outside the Etihad Stadium. They will be Manchester City legends for generations to come. The Blues have won the title four times since then, with the most tense being their battle with Liverpool in 2019. On the final day City won at Brighton while Liverpool were beating Wolves at Anfield. In 2014 City claimed domestic football’s top award when they beat a team wearing claret and blue, West Ham, 2-0. A slip by Steven Gerrard against Chelsea had proved decisive.

This weekend City play Steven Gerrard’s claret and blue Aston Villa, with Liverpool facing Wolves and hoping it’s City that slip this time and they can claim the title. It will be tense. I remember that day in 2012 very clearly, I always will. City took the lead through a Pablo Zabaleta’s goal before then falling behind to relegation threatened QPR. It looked like City were going to throw it away, before late, late goals from Edin Dzeko and Aguerrrooo sent the Blues into ecstasy. I was commentating for BBC radio that day and my equipment crashed to the floor as Nigel Gleghorn celebrated; but that’s another story.

Most City fans will be hoping for a straightforward 4-0 win against Villa, so they can savour the day rather than be worried about what is happening at Anfield. That could easily happen of course, because this City team, when it’s fully focussed and firing on all cylinders, can blow teams away. If I’m being honest, and I don’t usually predict the outcome of games, that’s what I expect to happen.

I was at Maine Road on 11^th May 1985 when Paul Simpson ran riot and the Blues clinched promotion against Charlton Athletic with a 5-1 win. City had lost their penultimate game, that season, at Notts County, so had to bounce back on the last day of the season, which was another glorious May day. 

Whatever happens this Sunday will polarise the views of the most tribal of fans. If City win the title again, the scorer of the winning goal or maybe the player who produces the defining performance of the day, may end up being immortalised on a plinth outside the stadium whereas if City lose the title to Liverpool, some fans will criticise the players and manager for ending the season with no trophies.

There will also be those who will put forward conspiracy theories about the authorities fixing it so that City wouldn’t win another title. Those watching on TV will accuse the commentators of bias and delight in City falling at the last hurdle. Last Friday night City celebrated Aguero day with two events, a high price lunch which allowed the lucky few to dine with Sergio and then in the evening 2,000 ballot winners attended a celebration in Manchester which Sergio and many of the 2012 attended. 

I wasn’t there but I’ve since discovered that the Sky commentator, Martin Tyler, the man who ecstatically proclaimed, “Aguerrroooo, I swear you will never see anything like this ever again, so watch it, drink it in” was angrily booed by City fans, one even through a glass of beer at him, when he was introduced to the stage. That was tribalism at it’s worse. Martin is perceived by some City fans of having an agenda against City. 

After Sunday’s draw at West Ham one City fan wrote on twitter, “when you listen to Martin Tyler’s commentary when Grealish scored, could he have been more despondent?” He got a reply from a West Ham fan, “Actually I thought he cheered when the (West Ham) own goal went in. I thought the TV coverage was biased towards City”. That’s tribalism summed up.

Whatever happens on Sunday, be respectful. Football is to be enjoyed. Win, lose or draw it’s great to be a Blue!