We take a look a 5 of the biggest talking points from the weekend’s Premier League action.
Palace on the Up
Crystal Palace were full value for their 1-0 over this season’s surprise packages, Burnley. Bakary Sako netted the only goal of the game as Roy Hodgson’s charges completely outclassed the seventh-placed Clarets.
Despite being rock bottom of the league after 15 rounds of action, Palace now have the top half of the table in their sights and will be frothing ahead of their trip to an out of form Arsenal on Saturday. They’ve now gone three games unbeaten in the league including an extremely credible 0-0 draw against Manchester City on New Year’s Eve.
It might well be worth your while to have a cheeky little go on Palace to grab the points against Arsene Wenger’s men this weekend at 47/10.
The Terriers Losing their Bite?
Huddersfield are look as though they’ve just started to find the pace of the Premier League too much to cope with. They’re winless in five and were decimated at home by a ruthless West Ham side at the weekend.
All that said, David Wagner has moved to reinforce his squad in the winter with Terence Kongolo arriving on loan from Monaco and Alex Pritchard joining up with the side from Norwich in a £10m deal. Both made their debuts for the club in the fixture, coming on in the second half after West Ham had scored their fourth and final goal.
Huddersfield fans will want to see the two hit the ground running in the coming weeks. Pritchard, in particular, will need to start adding goals and assists to his game on the biggest stage after completing his move from the Championship. Huddersfield have only managed 19 goals this season, with only Swansea (14), West Brom (18) and Brighton (17) scoring fewer. An injection of creativity is desperately needed.
Kane Drives Spurs toward Top Four
Tottenham fans would have been fearing the worst in November and December with their team suffering defeats against Arsenal, Leicester and Manchester City as well as dropping points against fodder like West Brom and Watford.
It comes as no surprised that Spurs’ recent upturn has coincided perfectly with Harry Kane’s spectacular scoring run. Tottenham’s number 10 has banged in eight goals in his last five league appearances and looks as though he’ll claim a hat-trick of Golden Boots.
The Lilywhites will need him to be at his best over the next month or so with massive fixtures against Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Juventus on the horizon. If they are to successfully navigate these fixtures, they’ll need their talismanic centre-forward to be at his mercurial best.
Wenger Staring Down the Barrel
While Mauricio Pochettino and his Spurs are on the up, Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal look a husk of the all-conquering side led by Patrick Vieira in the earlier 2000’s. The Gunners were smartly beaten by Bournemouth at the weekend despite going a goal up through a Hector Bellerin strike.
Wenger’s problems have been compounded of late with all of the rumours surrounding Arsenal’s two best players – Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil – making the rounds. Neither have committed to new contracts and will almost certainly leave the club for free in the summer if they’re not sold in this window.
With fans growing impatient with increasingly poor results and an ever more worrying gap appearing between the Gunners and the top five, we could very well see the Arsenal board swing the axe at the end of the season.
Manchester City Brought Down to Earth by Scintillating Reds
Pundits and fans alike feared the worst for Manchester City in the lead up to their Anfield clash against Liverpool on Sunday evening – and for good reason. The Reds have been in fine fettle of late and were quietly confident heading into Sunday’s blockbuster fixture, and their performance didn’t disappoint.
It was interesting to see how Klopp’s charges set-up in the first fixture of the post-Coutinho era. The home side seemed more than happy to work with just 36% possession and flooded forward every time they got the ball. The clever movement of Firmino, the driving runs of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain along with the pace and trickery of Sadio Mane and Mo Salah proved too much for the City defence to deal with.
It was a brilliant piece of management by Klopp who would have demanded that his side test a City defence who have been little more than spectators this season. Kyle Walker, Fabien Delph and Danilo were penned in and struggled to cope with the relentless waves of Liverpool attack.
John Stones showed vulnerability as he was muscled off the ball by Firmino for Liverpool’s second while Nicolas Otamendi simply couldn’t find passing range as he was incessantly closed down by the Liverpool front three. Even the ultra-consistent Fernandinho had little effect on the match with Andrew Robertson neutralising Raheem Sterling’s threat brilliantly well.
The rest of the league now has the blueprint to topple Guardiola’s side. Whether or not other teams will be brave enough to attack the Citizens at every turn remains to be seen.
Click here to follow us on Twitter for live updates, sporting previews, fixtures, and results.
