Title race the most open in years

Manchester City’s roving reporter writes every week for Chron Sport

THERE was a huge sense of disappointment for Manchester City as the side was beaten by a strong Stoke side -but there’s a great opportunity to bounce back tonight in Europe.

I think I said last week that Stoke is never an easy place to play, and that’s exactly how it turned out. The blustery conditions didn’t help wither.

City missed Vincent Kompany badly. Whenever he’s injured it’s a massive loss across the back.

Hopefully he will return in the team sooner rather than later.

The result opens up the title race again. It’s going to be tight this season; nobody seems capable of stringing together a run of wins. Liverpool’s result at Newcastle was a big shock to me.

It looks set to be the closest Premier League title race in some years - probably seven or eight teams will currently fancy their chances of winning.

No-one is surging away yet, so I guess that’s good news for the neutral supporter. It’s going to be exciting between now and the end of the season.

So attention turns back to the Champions League tonight and City’s chances of finishing top of the group.

There is an advantage for the team finishing top when it comes round to the draw for the last-16 stage, but of course City are currently two points behind Juventus.

I strongly fancy City to beat Monchengladbach at the Etihad tonight, but then we’re still hoping for a favour from Sevilla against Juve.

I was interviewing Joe Hart yesterday for a ‘Chappy’s taxi’ feature for the City website. We had a laugh as I took him to training. The footage should hit the site this week.

Next up is Vinny Kompany. I’m hoping to get a game of ‘Pie Face’ with him. That’s a board game which is set to be popular this Christmas, and he’s promised to play me.