City dominated the headlines this weekend, obviously, and yet lost in the excitement of the change at City there was a very curious weekend of football. For the second week in a row Liverpool and United lost while Chelsea drew and Arsenal and Villa won. I suspect it has been a very long time since United, Liverpool and Chelsea got one point between them and to have it happen in consecutive weeks speaks I think to the impatience of the City ownership. There really is an opportunity this year.

Meanwhile in a season where Chelsea and United are perceived as the best two teams, Arsenal are very quietly getting back into the title race. Whilst United have said that they will not go into the transfer market for a defender and Liverpool seem unable to strengthen for financial reasons it will be down to Arsenal, Villa and Spurs to see who adds a player or two that makes the difference in the second half of the season.

So far Roy Hodgson's Fulham have confounded the expectations that some observers, including myself, had concerning how they would perform this year given the increase in fixtures and size of squad. If we are honest it's pretty amazing that United are still in second given the ridiculous amount of injuries that the club has. And given those two observations I'm still fairly flummoxed that Fulham destroyed United on Saturday.

You have to ask if in fact United were there for the taking mid week when Wolves boss Mick McCarthy made the controversial decision to take the standard squad rotation practices of the Premier League to its extreme logical conclusion and effectively played a second team against United giving the entire week of rest to the team in the run up to a stereotypical six pointer against Burnley. Bottom line is McCarthy is being asked to keep Wolves in the Premier League and at Christmas they are mid table.

Speaking of which Portsmouth receive the dubious distinction of being the bottom club at Christmas and despite their victory over the pathetic shell that was once the mighty Liverpool I still feel it is curtains for them. At the rate Rafa is going Liverpool will not even make the Europa League.

Teams in the Premier League with more draws than wins; City, Stoke, Everton, Hull and West Ham. Curious in that for City, Everton and West Ham you would say that expectations are not being met while Stoke and Hull are performing slightly above expectations.

I watched the West Ham vs. Chelsea game on Sunday. Shame that Zola and crew couldn't sneak all three points. Horrible penalty decision by the linesman against Matthew Upson but nice to see referee Mike Dean make Chelsea take the kick 3 times because of constant encroachment. I'd prefer that referees did that more often until the players learn the rule. Even on the 3rd one when Chelsea stayed out of the box the West Ham players were moving in so if the penalty had been saved you would have seen it taken a 4th time.

And finally there was City's game against Sunderland. End to end action doesn't seem descriptive enough for what was a fabulous game to watch. Bellamy was incredible and I'm not surprised to hear reports today that are suggesting that Bellamy is less than thrilled with the weekends events. I don't think any of us will be surprised if Bellamy follows Hughes to whatever next position the manager takes. Everton would be my guess if the patience of Moyes runs out. The ability of Hughes to find value especially in the Bundesliga would work well at Goodison. Second choice would be Middlesbrough if as expected the Gordon Strachan experiment fails. I suspect most observers would peg Bolton as the logical place once Megson is removed, but that depends on whether Bolton survive in the Premier League this year. Boro would be likely to spend more I feel to get back than Bolton. And Liverpool, as some have suggested? Well if you think the Anti Hughes crowd that disliked him from day one because of his United past was shall we say enthusiastic then you haven't seen anything if he went to Liverpool!