Manchester City's appeal of Vincent Kompany's red card was denied today, and the defender will miss City's next four games through suspension for violent conduct. That suspension begins on Wednesday evening, when City faces Liverpool in the first leg of their Carling Cup semifinal tie. Kompany was sent off for a two-footed, studs-up challenge deemed to be reckless and dangerous during his team's FA Cup match against Manchester United.

This means that Kompany will miss the match against Tottenham Hotspur. With Kompany out for three Premier League games and both Kolo Toure and Yaya Toure out for even more, the title race suddenly looks wide open. I'm not going as far as to say that a run at the title is likely for Spurs, but it's become a possibility that most didn't think existed after three rounds of Premier League action.

With Kompany and Kolo out, Tottenham are likely to face a central defense pairing of Stefan Savic and Joleon Lescott. That's not poor by any stretch of the imagination, but it's not a title-winning kind of pairing. It's not going to strike fear into anyone. It's very, very beatable.

And if Spurs nick three points off City? Suddenly, we could be looking at a wide-open five-way title race that features Spurs as one of the contenders.