Richards belongs in the Premier League

Les Chapman.

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

I FELT a bit sorry for Micah Richards on Saturday as he was in the Aston Villa side well beaten 4-0 by City.

Micah’s a great lad who I know well from his time at City, but Villa are pretty much dead and buried already. It’s a shame because Villa are a big club, and their current team defended well in the first half. But once the first goal went in you could see it was going to be curtains for them.

They’ve got some decent players, but confidence is on the floor there and they eventually fell to another heavy loss.

I believe Micah has a clause in his contract saying he can move on if Villa get relegated, so it will be interesting to see if he does; he’s a player who belongs in the Premier League.

I think City are very much still in the title race. Other results didn’t work out so badly over the weekend, with United losing and Spurs and Arsenal drawing. Leicester looked good again as they won at Watford, though.

The scenario can soon change, however. City are capable of winning the majority of their remaining 10 games, while Leicester have some tricky fixtures to play against sides who will be battling against the drop.

City go to Norwich next on Saturday, and they will fancy themselves. I think Norwich are going down — I’ve been saying that for a while — and City have a great record at Carrow Road.

On the work front, I’ve been working on a few upcoming features for the City website. One is to meet England World Cup final winner Ray Wilson.

Ray’s 81 now, but he was a great, great player and a team-mate of mine at Athletic for a short while.

He played 20-odd games for Oldham in the 1969-70 season after leaving Everton. He was approaching the end of his career then, but I remember he was a lovely bloke, truly genuine.

I’m hoping to get over to his house in Slaithwaite to meet Ray very soon.