1) Wenger and Pellegrini sweat on star names
- Appearances
- 10
- Goals
- 7
- Shots
- 37
- Shots on target
- 46%
- Offsides
- 8
Their arch tormentor may have just slid through the Premier League trapdoor, but Arsène Wenger and Manuel Pellegrini can’t afford to spend Monday night gloating. Their sides, the two title favourites, finally meet at the Emirates 17 games into a campaign both have tried and failed to make their own, hamstrung by injuries and their own tendency to self-destruct. With leaders Leicester travelling to Everton on Saturday, either side could be top of the tree, or a handful of points behind the flying Foxes, by Christmas morning. Recent form offers little indication, with Arsenal unbeaten in their past three league meetings since City thrashed them 6-3 two years ago. Arsenal have scored 11 goals in seven home games so far, while City are without an away league goal since September – so much may depend on which of two game changers can clamber from a crowded treatment table. Alexis Sánchez and Sergio Agüero are both in contention to return; the presence of either could prove crucial to the entire title race. Niall McVeigh
• Wenger says Sánchez could return against Manchester City
• Hart urges Manchester City to release their inner dragon
2) Chelsea’s players are damned if they do …
If Chelsea’s players carry on churning out performances that are well beneath them, they will continue to feel the ire of the fans. But with the club having disposed of José Mourinho on Thursday (supposedly “by mutual consent”), if they suddenly seem rejuvenated this weekend, it will look to some like they orchestrated his exit. Chelsea’s fans, for the most part, blame the players for Mourinho’s departure – leaving the training ground after the announcement on Thursday, Eden Hazard and Diego Costa looked guilty at worst, sheepish at best. It will be fascinating to see the reaction on the pitch and in the stands at Stamford Bridge when Sunderland come to town. The visitors’ manager, Sam Allardyce, doesn’t know what to think: “I’m not sure whether it’ll make my job harder or not to be honest,” he said. “I always think it’s quite a sad state of affairs when a team actually plays better when their manager has been sacked. I find it irresponsible from a players’ point of view. I think what happens with the crowd could be interesting. I’ve heard a lot of good support from the fans for José in this difficult period. The fans hadn’t turned against him.” With Mourinho gone, expect banners and chanting supporting the Portuguese. Michael Butler
• Adeus, José – a fittingly operatic departure for the Chelsea manager
• Hiddink can claim closure at Chelsea after raw wounds from Holland
• Mourinho still a great manager despite return of familiar flaws
3) Martínez must prove he’s capable of consistency
What a frustrating team Roberto Martínez’s Everton are. One week the sublime interplay dazzles with ‘Rom and Gerry’ (the nomenclature the Spaniard has adopted for Romelu Lukaku and Gerard Deulofeu) terrifying defences, the next they’re contriving to waste a host of chances and allowing Norwich to come away with what would have seemed at half-time a scarcely credible point. If they showed any sign of consistency, they could have taken the Premier League by storm in the way that Leicester have. Instead, Claudio Ranieri takes the league leaders to Goodison Park in the last game before Christmas with Everton six points off the Champions League places and firmly in mid-table. Martínez has the building blocks of a top-level side, but supporters are beginning to doubt if he will ever be the man to get the most out of them. This will be all too familiar to Wigan fans, who watched with delight as he led them to a most unlikely FA Cup success, followed all too quickly with a demoralising and hugely damaging relegation. If Martínez is to develop as a manager he needs to prove he can sustain form over the course of a season, rather than glimpses of magic interspersed with comic defending. If he can’t crack that there’s no way he’ll hold on to the likes of John Stones and Lukaku, and Everton will find themselves with one hell of a rebuilding job on their hands. Toby Moses
• Too much, too young, but George Green makes new start at Ossett
• Ranieri deserves greater credit for Leicester rise, says Martínez
4) Manchester United can no longer lean on their history
Not too long ago, though it must feel like a lifetime for Manchester United fans, fixtures against recently promoted teams at Old Trafford were viewed as almost foregone conclusions. Invariably United would get the job done and swiftly move on to the next one. Not any more. United will run out against Norwich on Saturday looking for a first win in five (all competitions). They will be tempted to look at their impressive head-to-head record in this fixture for a source of comfort but that means nothing in their current climate, even if it reads impressively. United have scored at least four goals in Norwich’s three most recent visits to M16, and the Canaries have not found the net there in five. A failure to win, in a week when murmurs over players growing unhappy with their style of play have surfaced again, would usually seem unthinkable, but the aura is gone and United can no longer rely on history as a psychological advantage against perceived lesser opponents. Alan Smith
• De Gea: there is no dressing room discontent
• Norwich City investigate video footage of Ruddy ‘scuffle’
5) Stoke’s ‘reinvention’ will be tested by Palace
- Appearances
- 6
- Shots blocked
- 8
- Clearances
- 30
Stoke City exploded into the spotlight with their 2-0-which-could-have-been-5-0 win over Manchester City this month but the labelling of Mark Hughes’s side as freewheeling razzin’-dazzlin’ Krkic-Shaqiri-Arnautovic-fuelled entertainers is somewhat wide of the mark. Their success (and it’s a qualified success – they are only 11th, after all) has been based on good ol’ fashioned Pulis-esque solidity at the back. They failed to keep a clean sheet in their first seven games of the season – in the nine matches since they have kept seven (only Louis van Gaal’s footballing Temazepam-alikes have kept more) but Stoke have also failed to score on seven occasions, the same number as Aston Villa. Palace are the first visitors to the Britannia since Manchester City game – it’ll be interesting to see which Stoke side turns up. John Ashdown
• Premier League transfers: rating all the summer signings
• Pardew: US investment will not boost transfer funds
6) Have Newcastle really turned a corner?
Steve McClaren looked broken last month. Now he’s aiming for three wins in three, and gamely talking up his Newcastle side’s “bedrock of discipline and hard work”. Here, then, comes a decent test of that new resolve. After the wins over Liverpool and Spurs, when fan expectations were low, they face Villa in Saturday’s late kick-off with the new burden of being clear, in-form favourites. The visitors are eight points adrift and desperate – but Fabio Coloccini reckons his side can keep it together, and prove things really have changed. The last two wins, he says, reflected “the real Newcastle”: “Of course, of course … We have to stay at this level. We will keep our feet on the floor.” David Hills
• McClaren and Van Gaal show topsy-turvy nature of management
• Aston Villa will back Garde with January funds
7) A signpost match at the Hawthorns
There’s a hint of the flat-track bully about West Brom this season: of their five league victories, four have come against Villa, early-season Stoke, Norwich and Sunderland. So the visit of Bournemouth to The Hawthorns should have the home fans rubbing their hands. The Cherries actually have a slightly better record against the teams in the top half than they do against their rivals at the wrong end of the table – perhaps their free-flowing style suits playing on the counterattack? – but they should travel with a spring in their step after last week’s win over Manchester United. The result here could offer a decent insight into where each team’s season is heading. JA
• Origi’s late goal spares Liverpool home defeat by West Bromwich
• Bournemouth’s King stuns Manchester United
8) Watford begin tough run
Quique Sánchez Flores is doing a stunning job at Vicarage Road. It’s worth dwelling on the achievement – a manager with no first-hand experience of English football who became Watford’s fifth manager in a year when he was appointed in the summer and was handed 16 new players before the start of the season has the newly promoted side in seventh place after 16 games and just four points away from the Champions League places. A top-10 finish looks a real possibility, with perhaps just one fly in the ointment: one win in seven against teams in the top half; six wins and three draws from their nine games against teams in the bottom half. The visit of Liverpool is the first of a quartet of games that could go a long way to defining the Hornets’ season – Chelsea, Tottenham and Manchester City are up next. JA
• Klopp is a bit of an idiot, says West Brom’s McClean
• Watford close to signing Roma’s Iturbe on loan
9) Spurs must rediscover their inner Scrooge to boost top-four hopes
As deflating as last Sunday’s defeat to Newcastle was for Tottenham, it did at least temper expectations at White Hart Lane. A 14-game unbeaten league run came to an end but that was somewhat of a misleading statistic. Eight of those were draws and, including the 2-1 reverse to the Magpies, Spurs have taken the lead three times in their last five matches and failed to win. An obvious explanation would be an over-reliance on Harry Kane while the absence of Mousa Dembélé, so improved this season, was telling against Newcastle but for all that Tottenham may appear better defensively with Jan Vertonghen and his fellow Belgian Toby Alderweireld paired together, Mauricio Pochettino’s side have managed just five clean sheets in the league, and three of those have been in goalless draws at home. On Saturday Spurs travel to Alderweireld and Pochettino’s former club Southampton, who have also been struggling at the back of late, conceding 12 goals in their last five matches, and Tottenham should have enough firepower to get back to winning ways but doing so while keeping Saints out would be a more significant boost to their top four hopes. Gerard Meagher
10) Carroll can wreak havoc in Swansea’s shambolic defence
Andy Carroll enjoys playing against Swansea. Three of his five goals last season, albeit during a campaign in which he spent more time sidelined by injury than playing, came against the Welsh side and he has seven against them in total. How he must be relishing going up against a Swansea defence that has been frequently torn apart in recent weeks. Carroll’s duel with Ashley Williams in particular will be fascinating and while unlikely to feature high on lists for aesthetics, will have a certain touch of the old school about it. Swansea performed admirably in the first game of the post-Garry Monk era at Manchester City last week, only defeated by a last-minute goal that required a heavy deflection, but the strain on a team that has won only one game since August has been evident. That victory came against Aston Villa in September, a fixture that also featured their most recent clean sheet. Much of the focus has surrounded their struggles in attack but Monk’s replacement will also have some work to do on their creaking defence. AS
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