Southwell Tuesday

A very quiet by normal standards, but a winning one with Real and Barcelona both winning. Dubawi Cheetah was scratched and did not run.

It was Manchester 2 London 0 in the match-up of the top teams in the Premier League. Man City were lucky to get the 3 points with a last-gap penalty kick taken by Balotelli. The result could so easily have swung in Tottenham's favour had Defoe not missed a gaping open goal minutes before City's game winner. These 3 points could prove decisive in the end, no doubt.

Man Utd played like champions in winning at the Emirates Stadium. They certainly won't give up the title fight until the end and man-handled Arsenal for a deserved win. The after-match talk was all about the controversial substitution of Arsenal's arguably best player on the pitch Alex Chamberlain after their goal. I agree with those that maintain that Wenger got it wrong (again) there. The young phenom was one of the few players able to cause some havoc in the Mancunian defence and should have continued the game if they were serious of getting the badly-needed 3 points out of the game. Just reading Wenger's post-match analysis would make an Arsenal fan want to cry; he felt they could have won the game comfortably in the second-half. I don't know which game he was looking at, but Man Utd should have easily buried a couple of goals on his Gunners; the visitors were by far the most menacing throughout the game.

In La Liga, Real and Barcelona won as expected and it was another no-event at the top. Ramblings of squad conflict at the Bernabeu are surfacing and it will be interesting if these unsettle the Los Blancos. At the present, Madrid are playing as good professionally as they can in La Liga and I cannot see any reason why they are not to be followed.

On Tuesday, back to racing where the 15:50 race at Southwell looks a good place for Moataz to strike again in the space of 3 days. The Mark Johnston stable is on fire and Moataz looks to be ahead of the handicapper in this average handicap. If the Elusive Quality gelding takes well to the fibresand surface, he should play a major role at the finish. I recommend him as an each-way punt.

Each-way: Moataz