Manchester City Prevails in a Last-Gasp Thriller

First, this was a match that seemingly would never end.

And then when it did, the referee found a way to outdo the NFL as a No Fun League.

Bournemouth literally went the distance against Manchester City in a typical Premiership underdog-vs-big brand bout just to lose 1-2 at not the last minute, but at the seventh minute of time added on.

And then the Citizens still found a way to go home unhappy, and rightly so.

The Cherries ambushed City with an early conterder for Goal of the Year from Charlie Daniels, whose rocket of a shot pierced through the heart of its defense:

Damn. How long before he gets swallowed up by a big bucks monolith?

Duly sobered, City returned with a quick reply eight minutes later when Gabriel Jesus did the honors:

And that's when the match went on and on and on until Mr Money -- Raheem Sterling -- took advantage of a long clock to swipe all the points:

Sterling and his teammates jubilantly charged toward that part of the ground where their fans were celebrating this fortuitous occasion. For some reason, the local constabulatory went into übercontrol mode.

It was a rather curious move; can anyone find an incident where a team's players joining with its fans constitutes a threat to safety?

But referee Mike Dean went into his taskmaster persona, anyway, and hoisted a second yellow card in front of the English international.

That means, as of now, Sterling's suspended for the Sat 9 Sep match against Liverpool.

This comes in the wake of the world's most pompous sports league -- the NFL -- relaxing its celebration rules.

It was a welcome change.

Perhaps a Premiership version will now be in the offing.