Is The Title Race Over?

How quickly things change. It feels like it wasn't too long ago when Man City seem to have a firm grasp on the title and on their way to a historic season.

Instead, Roberto Mancini's men are now trailing Man Utd by five points with seven matches to go. And out of those seven include ties against Arsenal, Man Utd and Newcastle.

As for the Devils, with the exception of City, their toughest matches in the run-up to the end of the season would be against Everton and Swansea.

Yeah, that five-point gap is starting to look a lot larger than it is.

City have themselves to blame, though. Drawing 3-3 against Sunderland (after trailing 3-1) and 1-1 against Stoke aren't the scores of a club that's going to be lifting the Premier League trophy in May.

Why the sudden fall? Let's agree that form is unpredictable and even the best teams in the world can have off days and in this case City have had two big off days that is costing them dearly.

But at the same time, the on-the-field problems between Mario Balotelli and Aleksandar Kolorov in last weekend's match was not only appalling and downright stupid but a hint that all's not well in City's dressing room.

To make matters worse, several reports say that midfielder Yaya Toure and the Italian striker clashed in the dressing room following the Sunderland draw.

At a time when Man Utd are growing with confidence that a 20th league title is within their grasps, Mancini needs his men to refocus on the real prize and not behave like overpaid children on the field. And if he needs to drop Balotelli, he needs to do it once and for all and bring someone like Carlos Tevez back into the fold. Egos don't win titles, winners do and Tevez is a winner who knows what it takes to win the league.

Last of all, he needs to stop Patrick Viera from engaging in amateur-level psychology warfare against someone as experienced as Sir Alex Ferguson at a time when his team is starting to fall apart.