Seven Up! Man City and co turn screw in Premier League

Every team in the Premiership top seven won last week to underline the divide that is forming between them and the rest.

Manchester City (now evens for the title), Chelsea (3/1) Manchester United (40/1), Spurs and Everton (both 80/1) all won 2-0, while Arsenal (4/1) made harder work of it to stay top of the pile when edging out Aston Villa 2-1.

Liverpool (8/1) turned on the style with a 5-3 victory at Stoke, but the bottom line is that nothing has changed in the race for the title and a top four Champions League position.

It can’t be the same this weekend because two of the seven, Chelsea and Man United, clash at Stamford Bridge on Sunday, but City (1/7), Liverpool and Arsenal (both 2/9) all look likely to carry on where they left off in home fixtures against Cardiff, Aston Villa and Fulham respectively this Saturday.

City are looking more and more like Premier League winners as each week goes by, a view that is certainly shared by Jose Mourinho and Brendan Rodgers, who, warming up for the inevitable and tiresome ‘mind games’ exchanges, both said that it is Manuel Pellegrini’s side’s to lose – a bit of a nonsense when they aren’t even top of the league at the moment.

A perfect ten out of ten home wins in the Premiership (and 38 goals), not to mention recent 5-0 and 6-0 Cup wins, is extremely impressive and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will hardly be relishing his trip back to Manchester this weekend with his struggling South Wales outfit..

It has become a case of not how, but how many when City play at home these days and there will be plenty of takers of Coral’s 8/1 for a 4-0 victory, while 5-0 (14/1) and 6-0 (25/1) are quite feasible outcomes, especially now Sergio Aguero (8/13 to score, 3/1 at any time) is back from injury.

Liverpool are also scoring goals for fun, in particular the remarkable Luis Suarez, who took his tally to 22 from 16 games with another brace at Stoke. Daniel Sturridge is back in harness, too, and it will be a surprise if Villa get anything more out of their trip to Anfield than the runaround.

Arsenal don’t have the same potency up front, but are still averaging close to two goals per game and it’s hard to see lowly Fulham stopping them at the Emirates.