Manchester City's Hopes of Premier League Title Still Alive

The gap is five.

Five points separate Manchester City from their crosstown rivals, Manchester United. Five games remain in their season, a season where they held the first position in the Premier league for 20-straight match days before a 1-0 loss to Swansea City on March 11 relegated them to second. Second behind United—a place all to familiar to the club.

City's last league-title came at the culmination of the 1967-68 season, while United has won league honors 12 times since then.

This past year, the Manchester Blues splashed millions of pounds, courtesy of new Middle-Eastern ownership, at top-talent in order to reverse what became perceived as the natural order of things.

City were poised to emerge from that long shadow of Old Trafford, but a March slump (eight points from five matches) had the Etihad-dwellers down eight points in the standings at the commencement of tonight's matches.  The cause seemed all but lost when Arsenal thoroughly outplayed City last week in a 1-0 victory which ended with the fourth expulsion for Mario Balotelli.

However, in a year of seemingly-endless ups and downs, today's results opened the door on City's title hopes, rather than shutting it.

With relegation threatening, Wigan's under-fire manager put together a resistant performance in holding on to a 1-0 win over United at the DW Stadium simultaneous to City's 4-0 throbbing of West Bromwich Albion.  Remarkably, it was Wigan's first win ever over Manchester United in 14 previous encounters.

The Manchester derby now looms even larger on the horizon and could very well be title decider.  United will clearly be seeking vengeance after the 6-1 dismantling the Blues handed them at Old Trafford back in October.  In order to set up this most intriguing match, both clubs have to navigate difficult opponents before the 30th of April.  

Norwich—the weekend's opponent for City—and Everton—Man U's foe in a couple of weeks—are two teams in the midst of good spells of form.  Even beyond the return match at the Etihad, Man City faces a potential stumbling block at St. James's Park and fifth-place Newcastle in the penultimate week of the 2011-12 season.    

Remaining Fixtures:

4/14- City@Norwich City 

4/15- Aston Villa@United

4/22- City@Wolverhampton; Everton@United

4/30- Manchester United@Manchester City

5/6- City@Newcastle United; Swansea City@United

5/13- QPR@City; United@Sunderland