At times West Ham looked like a team of attacking terrors and Jürgen Klopp must stitch and mend his depleted defence before the trip to Old Trafford at the end of the monthAs West Ham pressed forward with real vigour in the first half at the London Stadium there was something lurking just below the background noise, getting louder with every breakaway, every snatched chance. There it was again 10 minutes after half-time as Felipe Anderson dropped deep and turned away from Joël Matip like a man absent-mindedly swerving a discarded traffic cone: the sound of something starting to creak.At the end of this tight, fretful 1-1 draw in the Stratford leisure zone it was hard to avoid the evidence...
Unai Emery gets better of Maurizio Sarri, Mohamed Salah takes shine off his milestone and Riyad Mahrez victim of City’s powerWhile these have been a troubled few weeks for Arsenal, with Sven Mislintat’s impending exit set to leave a big hole in their recruitment department, their victory over Chelsea was a reminder there have been plenty of positives during Unai Emery’s first season. The Spaniard has had to muddle along with an imbalanced squad but has shown he can make important tactical interventions on several occasions. He certainly got the better of Maurizio Sarri, disrupting the Chelsea manager’s attempts to build from the back by using an energetic high press, and his switch to a midfield diamond demonstrated Arsenal have...
Who will Pochettino turn to up front? Will Lindelöf banish bad memories of Brighton? And should Sarri start Giroud? If Mauricio Pochettino could have picked one Premier League team to start playing against without his top scorer and his most in-form attacker, then he would surely have plumped for Fulham. Claudio Ranieri’s defensively chaotic side are the perfect opponents in a far-from-ideal scenario for Tottenham, who must learn to cope without Harry Kane and Son Heung-min. It will still be interesting to see how Mauricio Pochettino tries to overcome those losses. Perhaps he will ask Dele Alli or Lucas Moura to play as a shifty striker or maybe he’ll deploy Fernando Llorente, a more conventional centre-forward who netted a hat-trick...
Pep Guardiola revised his philosophy as the champions’ physical display secured a vital win to end Liverpool’s unbeaten runWhen Crystal Palace visit Anfield in a couple of weeks Roy Hodgson will doubtless be reminded of his pre-Christmas remark – a slightly tactless one for a former Liverpool manager – that a four-point gap at the top of the table was nothing for Pep Guardiola to worry about.That may still be the case, with 17 rather than 20 games left, though what Guardiola would really appreciate from Hodgson is the sort of Palace display against Liverpool that took the points at the Etihad and spooked Manchester City to such an extent they went on to lose their next game against Leicester....
In the past 10 years, any Premier League attacker who can maintain an A-list run has become a target of La Liga super clubs – but it would be a terrible idea for the Liverpool strikerIs English football in danger of losing Mohamed Salah to Real Madrid or Barcelona because he is now simply too good to stay?Mido certainly thinks so. Yes: that Mido. The same Mido who once issued a formal apology to Middlesbrough fans for being too fat. The same Mido who is, it turns out, a very good pundit these days and who raised a doubly interesting point this week about Salah’s trajectory in this, his second season of outright Premier League supremacy. Related: 11.7mm from glory:...