MANCHESTER // The names on the shirts and the faces are the same. The style of football, with its acute emphasis on high-paced attacking, is very similar. And yet this is a tale of two Cities.
There is the Manchester City who are in imperious, irresistible form on their own turf and the City who are surprise strugglers on the road.
There is the City with the 100 per cent record at the Etihad Stadium, where they are averaging more than four goals a game, and the City who take less than a point a game elsewhere.
Even Fulham have more points on the road; only Hull City, Crystal Palace, Norwich City and Sunderland have fewer and even then both Hull and Norwich have had rather harder fixture lists. It makes the next four days a defining period in this season.
Manuel Pellegrini has challenged his side to close the gap to leaders Arsenal to three points by the time 2014 starts.
Before then, City go to West Bromwich Albion on Wednesday night and Southampton on Saturday, Premier League aristocrats visiting two of the more enterprising members of the middle class.
It bodes badly that they have already lost at three clubs who may finish below both – Cardiff City, Aston Villa and Sunderland – as well as against title rivals Chelsea.
It is a source of enduring frustration to manager Pellegrini.
“We deserved to win some of the games we lost,” he argued. City dominated at Villa Park. They had 24 shots and 63 per cent of possession at the Stadium of Light.
“We have made some individual mistakes that [meant] finally we couldn’t win the games,” Pellegrini said.
Joe Hart’s mistakes provided a common denominator in the first three defeats.
“We don’t have so many problems in defending as the scores say and the results say,” Pellegrini said. “Against Aston Villa, against Cardiff and against Sunderland we made individual mistakes that decided the match.”
But Cardiff exploited set-piece frailties and both Villa and Chelsea caught City on the counter-attack, inviting the question if Pellegrini’s pressing game and high defensive line gives them a chance to accelerate into the space behind the back four.
Perhaps the long-awaited return of their defensive linchpin will make a difference.
“Our captain Vincent Kompany is coming back and everything will settle down,” Yaya Toure said and City’s classiest centre-back has only played in one of their four away reverses.
And yet the tactics are broadly similar, regardless of the venue. “It’s really good what we are doing at home, but now we have to copy it away from home,” said midfielder Samir Nasri.
He is a case in point: all five of his goals this season have come at the Etihad Stadium. So have 10 of Alvaro Negredo’s last 11. It is a sign of the imbalance in the results.
“At home we are very prolific,” added Toure. “Away is more difficult. We are trying to find a good balance.”
The sense is their fate depends upon their ability to find a happy medium.
The Premier League has only once been won by a team who took 30 or fewer points on the road – the Manchester United team of 2010/11 who, in a season of low totals, only took 25 on their travels. And even they only lost four times at opponents’ grounds.
“The more points we drop, of course, the more difficult [it is],” Pellegrini added.
City have the look of champions when they excel on their own turf. But as the Swansea manager Michael Laudrup said: “It all depends what they do away from home.”
sports@thenational.ae
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Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
Blackpink World Tour [Born Pink] In Cinemas
Starring: Rose, Jisoo, Jennie, Lisa
Directors: Min Geun, Oh Yoon-Dong
Rating: 3/5
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
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Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
Sreesanth's India bowling career
Tests 27, Wickets 87, Average 37.59, Best 5-40
ODIs 53, Wickets 75, Average 33.44, Best 6-55
T20Is 10, Wickets 7, Average 41.14, Best 2-12
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
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ULTRA PROCESSED FOODS
- Carbonated drinks, sweet or savoury packaged snacks, confectionery, mass-produced packaged breads and buns
- Margarines and spreads; cookies, biscuits, pastries, cakes, and cake mixes, breakfast cereals, cereal and energy bars
- Energy drinks, milk drinks, fruit yoghurts and fruit drinks, cocoa drinks, meat and chicken extracts and instant sauces
- Infant formulas and follow-on milks, health and slimming products such as powdered or fortified meal and dish substitutes
- Many ready-to-heat products including pre-prepared pies and pasta and pizza dishes, poultry and fish nuggets and sticks, sausages, burgers, hot dogs, and other reconstituted meat products, powdered and packaged instant soups, noodles and desserts
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
$1,000 award for 1,000 days on madrasa portal
Daily cash awards of $1,000 dollars will sweeten the Madrasa e-learning project by tempting more pupils to an education portal to deepen their understanding of math and sciences.
School children are required to watch an educational video each day and answer a question related to it. They then enter into a raffle draw for the $1,000 prize.
“We are targeting everyone who wants to learn. This will be $1,000 for 1,000 days so there will be a winner every day for 1,000 days,” said Sara Al Nuaimi, project manager of the Madrasa e-learning platform that was launched on Tuesday by the Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, to reach Arab pupils from kindergarten to grade 12 with educational videos.
“The objective of the Madrasa is to become the number one reference for all Arab students in the world. The 5,000 videos we have online is just the beginning, we have big ambitions. Today in the Arab world there are 50 million students. We want to reach everyone who is willing to learn.”
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
The National Archives, Abu Dhabi
Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.
Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en
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