1) Arsenal show developing Liverpool the way
The Arsenal v Liverpool match looked like what it should have: an uneven clash between two clubs at different stages of their development. Like Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United, Arsène Wenger’s team have a strength in depth that Liverpool lack. And they appear to be forging a mentality that enables them to assert their prowess in big games, even if their non-performance in the home leg against Monaco in the Champions League means further proof is required before we make any conclusive judgment on that. Generally, though, there are good grounds for optimism at Arsenal, especially if the club’s plans are enhanced by surprise boons such as the emergence of Francis Coquelin and Héctor Bellerín, neither of whom were expected to feature prominently, if at all, at the start of the season.
The consistency that Bellerín has shown in virtually every match he has played since his ordeal in the defeat at Stoke in December could serve as an inspiration to some of Liverpool’s recent recruits, notably another young Spaniard, Alberto Moreno, who looked clueless when attempting to prevent Bellerín from scoring a wonderful opening goal at the Emirates. Moreno has goofed several times this season but has also shown plenty of promise. That could be said of many of the players Liverpool bought as they tried to build half a team with the proceeds of the sale of Luis Suárez. Several of them could emerge as influential players next season. Emre Can certainly should, preferably in midfield, even though he has done well in defence, his dumb sending off on Saturday notwithstanding. Liverpool will miss Can and Martin Skrtel on Wednesday when they go to Ewood Park in pursuit of the FA Cup that Brendan Rodgers now craves as he seeks evidence of progress from a patchy campaign. Rudy Gestede, who tormented a stronger Liverpool defence in the first match at Anfield, will be looking forward to that. Paul Doyle
• Rodgers blasts Sterling’s agents after Arsenal defeat
• Match report: Arsenal 4-1 Liverpool
• Sterling flickers on fringes as Arsenal expose contract farrago
2) Krul should not be criticised for congratulating Defoe
Shortly after Tim Krul had been beaten by Defoe’s stunning left foot volley the half-time whistle blew and Newcastle United’s goalkeeper was caught on camera congratulating the Sunderland striker, patting Defoe on the back as they headed up the tunnel. Some Newcastle fans were upset at that but they should not have been. Krul is an excellent professional who probably cares a lot more about his team than certain colleagues but football is also supposed to be about sportsmanship and he was just acknowledging a piece of exceptional skill. Surely he should be applauded, rather than condemned? Louise Taylor
• Match report: Sunderland 1-0 Newcastle
• Carver warns Newcastle they are not safe from relegation yet
• Sportblog: Advocaat’s attacking key to Sunderland’s derby win
3) Charlie Adam hit, expected and deserved Mourinho’s praise
As Jonathan Walters laid the ball back to Charlie Adam 10 yards inside the Stoke half, your first instinct was to look towards Mame Biram Diouf. The Senegalese forward was the only realistic outlet for a player with Adam’s range but his run had done little to tear him from Gary Cahill and the pass was not really on. By the time you had finished that train of thought, the ball was halfway through the air and it immediately became clear that no such reasoning had occurred to Adam, who admitted afterwards to seeing Thibaut Courtois off his line and asking himself “why not do it at a place like Chelsea?”
Adam has done it before on a less exalted stage, and attempted it unsuccessfully on several other occasions, so a curmudgeon might reason that he who tries often enough will get it right once or twice. But the only important context here is that Adam had the brass neck to try it at the home of the league leaders – and speared the ball into a 66-yard arc of such power and accuracy that you concurred with José Mourinho that the fault, if there was any from Chelsea, lay in sluggish closing down rather than Thibaut Courtois’ positioning.
Goal of the season? That was what Mourinho, seeking Adam out after the game, told the Stoke midfielder he had just produced. Despite particularly stern competition this weekend, he was probably right. “The biggest thing is that you’ve got the character, if it doesn’t come off, to take the disappointment,” said Adam, and he was correct too. The best goals combine technical excellence with an outright lack of fear and, more often than not, come out with something you would never presume to see when watching a football match. Adam’s effort at Stamford Bridge was more hit-and-expect than hit-and-hope, and that was what made his improbable intervention so thrilling. Nick Ames
• Match report: Chelsea 2-1 Stoke City
• Interview: Stoke City’s billionaire owner Peter Coates
4) Adam or Zamora?
OK, if we’re judging the two goals on distance alone, then there is only one winner, but there was something - as one reporter described it on Twitter on Saturday night – “deeply and profoundly sensual” about Zamora’s strike at The Hawthorns. If Adam bludgeoned his 66-yard shot with a three wood, Zamora was gracefully swinging a pitching wedge and the end result was every bit as devastating. There didn’t even look to be a shot on when Zamora sprinted – as best as a 34-year-old who does not train can – into the inside right channel and, without breaking his stride, nonchalantly flicked the ball with the outside of his left boot to lob Boaz Myhill on the run. It was instinctive, effortless, judged to perfection and, to paraphrase Ruud Gullit, the sort of goal that Lionel Messi would have cherished. Whether it was better than the goal Zamora scored for Bath City against Grantham in January 2000 is a debate for another day. Stuart James
• Match report: West Brom 1-4 QPR
• Charlie Austin: ‘I’m having a hell of a season. But Kane has scored 29’
5) Mailman Rooney always delivers
For some intriguing reason Wayne Rooney can still draw scepticism despite constantly delivering. The 79th-minute control-then-volley he smashed beyond Brad Guzan in Saturday’s 3-1 win over Aston Villa was the latest entry into Rooney’s ever-growing canon of Roy of the Rovers goals and did not go unnoticed by his team-mates. “I think the touch was actually better than the strike,” said Phil Jones. “He plucked it out of the air with his weaker foot, swivelled on the half-volley and smacked it into the top corner. He does that week in, week out. Wayne’s a leader and everybody follows him. He leads by example. He made a comment before the game saying it’s no good beating Liverpool if you can’t beat Aston Villa at Old Trafford and he was bang on.”
He is also something else. Despite all the trophies and closing in on being the record goalscorer for United and England, Rooney is underrated: consistent excellence in any field is the mark of the very best, and he has been doing just that since he was a teenager. Jamie Jackson
• Match report: Manchester United 3-1 Aston Villa
• Paul Wilson: Coaches not Dyke’s quotas can heal England
6) How good is Andros Townsend?
The Twitter war is the one of the most tiresome of 21st century phenomena. Every now and then, though, some valid points are raised in the online arguments. Paul Merson’s ongoing dispute with Andros Townsend has received rather too much attention already, but it does pose a pertinent question: just how good is the winger? Very good, if his England career is the sole guide: he has scored three times in seven games, averaging a goal every 116 minutes and delivering a glorious equaliser against Italy last week. But his time at Tottenham lends itself to a very different conclusion. Townsend has still only scored as many league goals for his club as he has managed in his brief international outings. He is yet to complete 90 minutes in the top flight this season and was granted just seven as a substitute at Burnley on Sunday. Merson asked Townsend if he missed the coach; another kind of coach – Mauricio Pochettino, rather than a four-wheeled vehicle – is clearly not particularly impressed. Paulinho, scarcely one of his favourites, began at Burnley. The underwhelming Erik Lamela came on before Townsend. His club days show few periods of fine form: perhaps when on loan at QPR, but they got relegated, and in September and October of 2013, prompting his international call-up, but apart from that his time in the Premier League has been undistinguished. He may be the opposite of many of the men who have underachieved for England in recent years: a far better player for country than club. Richard Jolly
• Match report: Burnley 0-0 Tottenham Hotspur
• Pochettino fears Champions League place is out of Spurs’ reach
• Michael Cox: Tactical indecision results in deadlock at Turf Moor
7) Southampton must now learn to break teams down
It was a line that has been used regularly in post-match press conferences at Goodison Park this season. “They showed us a lot of respect and that made it difficult.” For a change, however, it was not Roberto Martínez lamenting an opponent’s willingness to sit deep but Ronald Koeman. The Southampton manager admitted the ambitious prospect of Champions League qualification was probably beyond his team following the 1-0 defeat at Everton. The visitors had their chances but were foiled by Tim Howard in the first half. In the second, however, they did not stretch the Everton goalkeeper once despite dominating possession and there was a glaring lack of creativity from Southampton as they pressed for an equaliser. “We didn’t have the space that players like Shane Long and Sadio Mané need,” admitted Koeman. Southampton will have to get used to confronting this new-found “respect”. Finding a solution – something Everton have struggled for after Martínez’s impressive first season in charge – will be a determining factor in Koeman’s attempts to build on a fine debut in English football next term. Andy Hunter
• Match report: Everton 1-0 Southampton
• Lukaku should not have joined Everton, says striker’s new agent
• Southampton in profit for first time since 2009 to tune of £33.4m
8) Does Allardyce suspect his time is up?
Sam Allardyce’s demeanour was curiously relaxed, almost carefree, after his West Ham side were beaten at Leicester on Saturday. For those who attended Big Sam’s press conferencesat Bolton, Newcastle and Blackburn, it was a curious and rather unsettling experience – as was seeing the number of chances the Hammers allowed Leicester to create in the final quarter, a period during which they seemed more intent on catching the Foxes on the break than on shoring up their creaking rearguard. But as Allardyce pointedly confirmed, that is how it has been since he got “the big shout” (his words) at the beginning of the season that they had to attack more. The implication was clear: had he been allowed to instil a more discipline, West Ham would have accrued a darn sight more than 11 points from their last 14 games. Overall, however, it was hard not to leave with the impression that as far as he was concerned, next season will not be his problem. As if, in fact, the constant rumours suggesting his contract will not be renewed have a basis in fact – and he knows as much. Richard Rae
• Match report: Leicester 2-1 West Ham
• Jack Collison still chasing his footballing dream
9) McGregor gets into a bad habit for Hull
A player takes a shot from 25 yards. It’s low and hard, heading into the bottom left corner of goal, but it’s far from unstoppable and Allan McGregor dives to his right to keep it out. But the goalkeeper botches his save, spilling the ball into a dangerous area where an opponent prods it in while his marker dozes. It’s a dismal, morale-sapping way to concede, and Hull are making a habit of it.
“Carroll supplied the breakthrough. McGregor will not enjoy the inquest and nor will Curtis Davies,” wrote David Hytner after Andy Carroll profited to give West Ham the lead in a 3-0 win against Hull in January. “Valencia’s shot from 25 yards was well struck but the goalkeeper appeared to be in the right position only to bat the ball back out centrally. Carroll reacted more quickly than Davies to tap home his fifth of an injury-truncated season.”
“They fell behind in the 18th minute,” wrote the Press Association on Saturday. “Jonjo Shelvey’s strike could have been held or pushed around the post by Allan McGregor, instead he pushed the ball out to the feet of Ki Sung-yueng, who accepted the invitation to score his seventh goal of the season with alacrity.” This time Alex Bruce was the dawdling defender.
It’s a horrible habit to fall into, although perhaps on this occasion McGregor was just rusty. After all, the statistics show that his miserably fluffed attempt to keep out Shelvey’s shot was the Scotsman’s only save in Hull’s last two matches. Two weeks ago Chelsea scored all three of their shots on target in a narrow 3-2 win, while on Saturday Swansea had four shots on target and every one that wasn’t flapped out to the nearest forward went straight in. It is unlikely to help their morale that statistically Lukasz Fabianski in the home goal fared even worse: Hull only had one, and scored. Not a good day for the goalkeepers. Simon Burnton
• Match report: Swansea 3-1 Hull City
• The Dozen: the weekend’s best Premier League photos
10) Rémy, not Costa, is the gamble that has paid off for Chelsea
José Mourinho’s fretting over the ‘risk’ in introducing Diego Costa, who lasted just 11 minutes against Stoke, seems unnecessary, with Chelsea’s serene progress to the title almost complete after another hard-fought victory. Chelsea have lost twice all season, and have 70 points in the bank when a final tally of 82 may be enough. Costa’s withdrawal and recent injury struggles could have been more costly, however, were it not for another risk Mourinho took in the summer transfer window.
Few players have retreated from Premier League view more dramatically this season than Loïc Rémy; the French forward made 40 starts in 18 months with QPR and Newcastle, scoring a goal every other game. His appearances have dwindled, but the goalscoring ratio has remained strong. Rémy has started just four league games this season, scoring five goals - one every 93 minutes. That’s better than Kane, Agüero – even Costa.
Rémy, it’s safe to say, was signed as a backup to Costa, but not one without risks attached - at 28, he must have hoped to have made a bigger impact at Stamford Bridge, and he was little more than an afterthought in the first half of the season as Costa thrived. There have also been questions about his attitude, and health concerns that scuppered a summer move to Liverpool.
Mourinho, who has allowed Romelu Lukaku, Fernando Torres, Samuel Eto’o, Andre Schürrle and Demba Ba to leave the club permanently, took a risk in signing and then sidelining Rémy, with Costa starting whenever available and Didier Drogba offering a third forward option. The risk has paid off, with Rémy’s last three strikes earning a point against Manchester City, a win at Hull, and another three points at home to Stoke on Saturday. Without that trio of close-range goals, Chelsea would be just two points ahead of the chasing pack. Niall McVeigh
.jpg?w=600)
