City Defeat West Brom, Prep For Final Push

City downed West Bromwich Albion 3-0 at the Etihad, maintaining a slight advantage over Arsenal and Manchester United in the table.

Wilfried Bony started up top and logged his first goal in a City uniform, while the team besieged the West Brom net and finished with 43 shots on the day. It was a convincing performance from City, but the Baggies were playing a man down for basically the entire game after official Neil Swarbrick issued a controversial red card in the game's opening moments.

After the game, Vincent Kompany talked about the importance of staying focused down the home stretch of the season:

"We just have to focus on the next eight games and go for 24 points."

Chelsea nearly drew at Hull City, but a late winner from Loic Remy locked up three points for the league leaders. However, Manuel Pellegrini clarified that he is just concentrating on what City can control:

"We are not thinking about Chelsea. We will not be playing them again this season so I will probably not even watch their game."

Pellegrini is probably quite glad he did not watch Chelsea slip past Hull, as the Blues looked as though they might drop two valuable points on the road but then scored in the last quarter-hour to win 3-2. City are six points back, and Chelsea have a game in hand.

In order to hoist the hardware this season, City will need Jose Mourinho's squad to stumble, slip, trip, fall, get up and stumble again. Meanwhile, Arsenal trail City by just one point in the table and are on good form. The Gunners have not lost a Premier League match since early February. Plus, Man United earned a crucial road victory against Liverpool and now sit just two points behind City.

But optimism must prevail when stuck in limbo, right? City are in a sufficiently awkward position right now in terms of the title race and securing a position in the top four, but the showing against West Brom at the weekend was refreshing after painful losses to Burnley and Barcelona.