Can Greater Manchester put two teams in the top four?
United is top of the league, where it expects to be. Manchester City is fourth, where it, perhaps less realistically, expects to stay. But in fifth, and no doubt hugging themselves in disbelief, are Bolton Wanderers. Its Reebok Stadium, on the fringes of Manchester, is less than 13 miles from Old Trafford but it operates in a different world. Where City can throw tens of millions of pounds at other teams celebrity castoffs year after year and United can break the bank to keep Rooney, Bolton’s record signing is Johan Elmander, a striker who cost 11 million ($17 million). On the face of it, City’s 1-1 draw at inhospitable Stoke on Saturday was a better result than Bolton’s 2-2 draw at home to newly promoted Blackpool. But, as so often this season, City played badly and failed to win. It took the lead with only four minutes to play with a goal not from one of its high-priced strikers but from Micah Richards, a defender who was already with the club when it was bought by Abu Dhabi investor
