Toure faces ban as City struggle to cope

Norwich 0 Manchester City 0

The pair clashed in stoppage time at Carrow Road, as City failed to score again and missed a chance to regain top spot in the Premier League. After contesting a high ball, Toure appeared to kick the Norwich striker in the back as they landed, and although referee Jon Moss took no action, the FA may punish the Ivorian midfielder retrospectively once they have seen the referee’s report today.

Certainly TV replays showed Toure making contact with Van Wolfswinkel’s back, and if he is found guilty of violent conduct Toure could get a three-match suspension in a month when City are fighting for trophies on four fronts and already struggling to cope with missing players.

Against Norwich they were without Sergio Aguero, Fernandinho and Javi Garcia, and Manuel Pellegrini said Alvaro Negredo and Edin Dzeko were not 100% fit. It may be the same on Wednesday when they face Sunderland in the league, before taking on Gus Poyet’s men again in the Capital One Cup final, Chelsea in the FA Cup and Barcelona twice in the Champions League.

It is a huge test and Pellegrini admits the number of games are starting to take their toll. “Of course there is the possibility of injuries. But, at the moment, we are doing well. Although we drew here, it is not the last game that we are going to play. We have 13 games more to fight for the title. Every team will drop points. Last week, it was Chelsea against West Ham at home. Today it was Arsenal. We hope that we will continue fighting until the end.”

But he is concerned about fatigue and strain, and their performance on Saturday was nothing like the vibrant showings of the past few months, which included a 7-0 thrashing of Norwich in November. This was the first time in more than two years City have gone two games in succession without scoring, another concern for the manager.

“To score goals is always the most difficult thing in football,” admitted Pellegrini. “Maybe, because this team has been scoring goals so easily this season, people have been talking about the number of goals they are going to score again. But every match is different.

“I think this is absolutely related to the injury of Aguero. Negredo and Dzeko are not 100% fit. But we must continue. We are right behind the leaders. We have 39 points more to fight for and this team were favourites to win the title with the way we were playing. We must try, as soon as possible, to play that way.”

But it will not be easy. “It is not normal to have five players injured for an important game, and two or three more players were not 100%. We have a very difficult week because we have three competitions to play in. We will see how we can recover the players during these days.”

Chelsea have now become favourite for the title, having beaten City last Monday and gone top after their weekend win over Newcastle, with Arsenal losing heavily at Liverpool.

“It’s very difficult to know who are the favourites,” added Pellegrini. “For me, the favourites were Arsenal because after playing 25 games, Arsenal were leading the table for most of them. We were the favourites though, because we had been playing very well before this week. Chelsea are now playing well. But they are not the favourites.

“And don’t forget about Liverpool, and maybe Everton or Tottenham. I think five teams are going to fight for the Premier League this season.”

Chris Hughton’s main concern is at the bottom of the table, with his side dropping closer to the relegation zone despite this well-earned point. Norwich, who face fellow strugglers West Ham tomorrow could have gained all three with better finishing, having created the best chances, but Nathan Redmond, Russell Martin and Van Wolfswinkel lost composure in front of goal.

“As a unit defensively, we’ve improved. An area we need to improve on is goals and we’ve found it difficult. Nathan had a really good chance and we had two good opportunities in the second half. They’re the moments that have got to change games for us and probably we haven’t been able to do that enough.

“These are fine margins. We found that out last week. We were poor on the two goals (against Cardiff) but in a good performance we had enough chances to win comfortably.”

“We work on finishing most days in training. Certainly with the strikers we have and the wide players, it’s about the quality and doing it on a match day in pressure areas. When we get that change we might be able to push on.”

NORWICH (4-5-1): Ruddy; Martin, Yobo, Bassong, Olsson; Pilkington, Tettey. Fer, Johnson, Redmond; Hooper (Van Wolfswinkel, 68), (Whittaker, 89).

MAN CITY (4-4-2): Hart; Zabaleta, Kompany, DeMichelis, Clichy; Navas, Toure, Milner, Silva; Negredo, Jovetic (Dzeko, 61), (Kolarov, 76).

Referee: Jon Moss (W Yorkshire).