Emery has Arsenal on course for top-four finish, Camarasa’s class is vital for Cardiff and Coady leads Wolves from the backManchester United arrived in north London having won every away game under Ole Gunnar Solskjær, including a comprehensive FA Cup fourth-round victory at the Emirates. Arsenal had an unbeaten run of their own to protect – they haven’t lost at home in the league since the opening day – and Granit Xhaka’s early goal enabled them to maintain that run. Arsenal rode their luck at times, but Unai Emery’s three-man defence restricted the visitors’ threat on the break, while the deployment of both Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang up front paid off. Victory takes Arsenal’s tally against their fellow ‘big...
To win the club’s first league title since 1990, the Liverpool manager must stop his side being weighed down by it all, as happened to Steven Gerrard and co five years agoTake a journey along Utting Avenue, past where the old Clarence pub used to be, with Stanley Park on the right and Anfield at the top of the hill, and the series of red banners that Liverpool have placed strategically along the roadside offer some idea about the way this club, 18 times champions of England, like to portray themselves.“We are Liverpool, this means more,” is the message attached to the various lampposts leading up that hill, past the Taskers angling shop, the Anfield Cheque Cashing Centre and all...
Mkhitaryan makes a timely return to form, Bournemouth set unwanted record and Wolves should snap up JiménezHow do you deal with Manchester City? Take them on? Or get 11 players behind the ball and hang on for grim life. It was certainly a curious game at Bournemouth on Saturday – if you can call it a game. Eddie Howe’s side lost narrowly, 1-0, but it is hard to think of a more misleading scoreline. Bournemouth became the first club since Opta has been gathering data to fail to register a shot on or off target in a Premier League match. The home team never even won a corner. Kyle Walker, Manchester City’s right‑back, completed more passes than the entire Bournemouth...
The solidity of Jürgen Klopp’s team in defence has come at a cost in attack and against Everton they passed up five decent chances in a draw that kept them off the topAnother Sunday away against a local rival, another goalless draw, and another point that will either be what ended up winning Liverpool the league or that ended up costing them the title. That’s the problem with games like these: it can never be said an away point in such an environment is a bad result, but equally too many of such outcomes could be costly. And again there is the underlying thought that something has gone wrong with the forward line, that just when Liverpool could have done...
The interaction between Jürgen Klopp’s front three is not what it was and Mohamed Salah has seemed bafflingly out of sortsThere was a moment with just over an hour played when Jordan Henderson picked up possession in the centre-circle. He looked up, waited, looked up some more and eventually, having no other option, floated a long ball forward. Chris Smalling won the header against Sadio Mané and another Liverpool attack withered into nothingness. The impetus of November and December has ebbed away and although Liverpool still have the title in their own hands, there is a distinct sense that the momentum is now with Manchester City. Related: Liverpool fail to fire in stalemate with injury-hit Manchester United Related: Arsenal boosted...