Two hands on the title?

Sir Alex Ferguson conceded that Manchester City had two hands on their first Premier League title yesterday after the Citizens overcame a battling Newcastle side 2-0 on Sunday.

Barring a slip-up against lowly QPR, or a ridiculous goal-swing, Roberto Mancini looks to be on his way to his fourth league title, and his first in England. City deserved the win over Newcastle, but it was their manager who deserves most of the credit for his game-changing substitution in the 61st minute.

Replacing the, again ineffective Samir Nasri, for the on-paper more defensive midfield bruiser, Nigel de Jong, Mancini relieved some of the defensive duties on Yaya Toure and within 10 minutes the Ivorian went on to score the all important first goal.

At the time of Mancini's substitution I imagine City fans up and down the country were cursing their Italian and obviously defensive manager in a game that they needed to win, but the tactical switch proved to be telling and looks to have wrapped up the title for City.

Mancini was heavily criticised in his first year and a half in Manchester for being too cautious and was superbly vindicated by his substitutions and tactics today. A dangerous Newcastle side were well contained and Manchester City's cosmopolitan squad showed no sign of choking in this match.

With a five point lead over Mancini and his team, Ferguson had United in prime position a month ago. The defensive mistakes that have blighted the last few United performances can be accused, but the anaemic side that Ferguson put out in last weeks derby was a real turning point and a huge tactical error from the Scot.

Ferguson has had success hitting teams on the counter in the past, notably against Arsenal with Ronaldo running riot, however in the 'unmissable' game last week the United midfield were almost embarrassed by Man City's midfield engine.

A midfield of Scholes, Giggs, Carrick, Park and to a lesser extent Nani, has no dynamism to it and Manchester City were able to press incredibly high-up the pitch, much like Barcelona. Sir Alex got his tactics spectacularly wrong that night, in trying to match City up on the pitch and in effect try to take the draw, he played straight onto the hands of Mancini.

Player-to-player you would argue that City are by far stronger than the individuals in the United team. Aguero and Tevez are much better than Rooney and Welbeck, Hart beats De Gea, Kompany and Lescott are the best defensive pairing in the league, whilst Silva and Toure have carried City through several games this year. What has cost City at stages this season is their inability to always perform to their maximum potential, whereas United tend to over perform in more matches.

Rather than stick to their attacking flair, provided by the outstanding Valencia and Young, Ferguson tried to shut up shop and contain the most potent attacking side in the league. It went badly wrong and the tactical gamble looks like costing United the league.

Meanwhile, in the Budweiser Cup there was a rather predictable result as Chelsea just about did enough to beat a poor Liverpool side. Chelsea bossed the game for 60 minutes and it took the introduction of Andy Carroll to stir Liverpool into some response.

Carroll looked as if he had entered a time-warp and was reminiscent of the player that terrorised defences during his time at Newcastle. He gave John Terry a torrid time and somehow managed to dance round the former Engalnd skipper to score for Liverpool.

He was unlucky not to equalise, after Petr Cech pulled off a superb save to deny him his second, though you could argue the striker ought to have scored, heading it into the ground would have given Cech no chance. I would take Carroll to the Euro's and his third goal in four Wembley appearances may just have done enough for the Geordie.

Peter Crouch was propelled to the top of the England strikers queue after scoring a worldie and then doing little else, but for me Carroll can alter a game more dramatically and is most definitely one for the future.

Deplorable as he is, Ashley Cole was magnificent on Saturday and the left-back now has seven FA Cup winners medals. His form this season has been patchy, but since seeing Leighton Baines take his traditional place in the PFA team of the year, Cole has turned in superb performances both domestically and in Europe.

As for King Kenny, he is in for an arduous summer. Liverpool needed the FA Cup to avoid their season being branded a failure and are still £100 million worth of investment away from challenging the top four.

The Liverpool midfield is woefully ill equipped and Steven Gerrard was culpable on Saturday evening. Spearing and Henderson were the sitting midfielders, but after proving inefficient, Gerrard kept dropping back to just in front of his defence to pick up the ball and as a result the Liverpool midfield has well out of shape.

Liverpool have not replaced Mascherano and Alonso and with Gerrard on the wane for the last two seasons, they may be looking at three new midfielders before they can start competing again.