1) Foxes face a test of their credentials
- Appearances
- 13
- Goals
- 13
- Shots
- 51
- Shots on target
- 43%
- Offsides
- 6
Even if they never score, win or smile again, Leicester City’s position at the top of the table after a third of the season and the astonishing feats of Jamie Vardy – whose opportunity to expunge Ruud van Nistelrooy from the consecutive-game-scoring record books comes against the team for which Van Nistelrooy entered the consecutive-game-scoring record books – will remain among the most extraordinary achievements in recent Premier League history. That being said, the fact remains that they are yet to beat anyone very good. Of the top nine teams in last season’s final Premier League table they have so far played four, drawing against Tottenham, Stoke and Southampton and losing to Arsenal. Now, then, comes the crunch: six of the next eight are against last season’s top nine, and one of the other two is away at Everton, who have appeared a team transformed at times of late. Between now and the new year they play Manchester United, Swansea, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool and Manchester City. We are about to find out quite how seriously they need to be taken, but victory over a sturdy if uninspiring Manchester United side, who needed a stoppage-time own-goal to beat Watford last weekend and have since inflicted upon their fans a soporific 90 minutes against PSV Eindhoven, would be their finest single achievement of the season so far. SB
2) There is no cure for Spurstitlephobia
You can see them all over the place. Men and women. Young and old. Doubt in their eyes. Confusion in their hearts. Their minds foggy with uncertainty. Their steps stuttering, their direction aimless. They can’t eat. They can’t sleep. They can find no comfort in the grape or the grain. “What’s happening to me?” you can see them asking themselves. “Why do I feel this way? I know it’s not right, I know it can’t really be true, I know these feelings are silly … but I can’t help how I feel. It’s an illusion, a mirage, at best a passing phase. And yet … and yet … and yet … I really think Tottenham are genuine Premier League title contenders.” The title race is one of the most open in years, there doesn’t seem to be an outstanding side about to steamroller the rest, Spurs are only four points off the summit, and they’ve torn apart a series of sides in stunning fashion … it’s no wonder the condition is contagious. The temptation is to suggest that this weekend offers a chance for Mauricio Pochettino’s side to go out and prove they are in this for the long haul by battering the reigning champions. But, let’s face it, even if they were to beat Chelsea, and even if they did it in a style similar to the thrilling 5-3 drubbing they handed out to José Mourinho’s side at White Hart Lane on New Year’s Day, you would still be left with that uneasy feeling, the sense that all isn’t quite as it seems. Given that the last eight games between these sides have produced 35 goals, perhaps an unremarkable 1-0 home win would be the most disquieting result of all. JA
3) Will Klopp get his home comfort?
It’s not so much raining as pouring for Garry Monk at the moment. If one win in nine, increasingly disgruntled fans and a board pondering his future weren’t enough, now his No2 seems set to jump ship. Pep Clotet, Monk’s assistant who has been with the club since Michael Laudrup’s time, is at the front of the queue for the vacant Brentford job and reports in south Wales suggest he could join the Bees before the weekend. It’s not ideal preparation for a trip to Anfield, where Jürgen Klopp wants a home Premier League performance to match those his side have been producing away from Merseyside. His two home games as Liverpool manager in the league so far have resulted in a 1-1 draw with Southampton and a 2-1 defeat against Crystal Palace, while away from home they’ve beaten both Manchester City and Chelsea in fine style. Could it be that Klopp’s pressing game is simply better suited to facing the big boys away from home? He won’t have a better chance to prove that’s not the case than against a Swansea side in disarray. JA
4) Cabaye’s chance to show Newcastle what they’re missing
Newcastle’s form over their last six away games is the 18th best in the league, Steve McClaren’s side having won once, drawn once and lost four times over that period. On the down side, that is pretty terrible. On the plus side, it is the best it’s been for some time thanks to their ludicrously ill-deserved victory at Bournemouth on their last outing being only the second win they’ve enjoyed away from home in the last year. Indeed, the last time they could boast a better record over six consecutive league away-days was in February, when a 1-1 draw at Selhurst Park brought them a fifth point of a possible 18. If that isn’t a happy enough omen, this has been a delirious hunting ground for them in modern times: February’s draw was the only occasion in the last 30 years they have visited Crystal Palace and not beaten them, having previously won there six times in succession. Attention on the pitch will be focused on two former citizens of the north-east, in the shape of Palace’s £8m summer acquisition Connor Wickham, who has been promised another chance to impress having emphatically failed to do so against his former employers Sunderland last week, and Yohan Cabaye, a player whose departure from Newcastle in January 2014 massively weakened the team and has never been remedied. Injuries to Cheick Tioté and Jack Colback have left Newcastle, in Steve McClaren’s words, with “not a lot of midfield options” and whether they are able to emulate Sunderland’s disciplined performance in winning at Palace on Monday – reliant as it was on a defensive howler from the usually reliable Scott Dann – appears debatable. SB
5) Hammers are still in search of plan B
- Appearances
- 7
- Goals
- 1
- Shots
- 9
- Shots on target
- 22%
- Offsides
- 4
West Ham’s away-specialist crown is not just slipping but has very much slipped, Watford having knocked it off their heads with a comfortable 2-0 victory on Halloween and Tottenham having bludgeoned it into pieces during a riproaring 4-1 success at White Hart Lane on Sunday, leaving Manchester United free to ponder what they might do with the remnants next weekend. The onus is thus on West Ham to improve their home form, while also finding a way of thriving during Dmitri Payet’s injury-enforced absence. The lineup that started Sunday’s comprehensive defeat – when Andy Carroll’s one-paced, one-man attack played perfectly into Tottenham’s plans, allowing Spurs to push up their defenders, compress play and close down space when the Hammers had possession – was not the answer. For West Brom, meanwhile, the Hammers are the digestible filling in a tough fixture sandwich, with their last three games against Leicester, Manchester United and Arsenal (who they beat 2-1 despite having just one shot on target) and their next couple against Tottenham and Liverpool. SB
- Premier League: the race for the title (and Europe)
- Premier League is great – until it comes to Champions League
6) Canaries short of sausage rolls and big scalps
It is illustrative of how comfortable Norwich feel about life back in the Premier League that their AGM this week finished with complaints about long waits for food in Carrow Road’s Jarrold Stand (“If I could come down and give you a sausage roll myself, I would,” Delia Smith told the meeting. “We will investigate it”). They may have won only three times in the league all season and only once in their past eight games but there remains an air of quiet confidence in East Anglia. They are, though, yet to win against a team in the top half – two draws and four defeats thus far – so the visit of an Arsenal side weakened by a glut of injuries offers an opportunity to remove that particular monkey from their backs. Alex Neil – for whom, it is easy to forget, this will be just a 42nd match in charge of Norwich – has ditched his attacking style of late and adopted a more cagey approach. It has not quite worked against Manchester City or Chelsea in the past few weeks – but will it work against the Gunners? And will those sausage rolls be ready on time? JA
7) Shot-shy Villa must find a way to goal
Aston Villa have the worst attack in the division this season, having managed only 10 goals, and it’s perhaps no surprise: of all their players only Rudy Gestede regularly tries to score. The summer signing from Blackburn is in fact their only player who averages more than one shot a game (1.77, to be precise). Jordan Ayew, for example, has taken nine shots in nine league appearances this season; his six home games have yielded two efforts on target. Gabriel Agbonlahor has started seven games and taken five shots; in nine appearances apiece Carles Gil, Scott Sinclair and Jack Grealish have five, six and seven shots respectively. By way of comparison, using Saturday’s opponents, Odion Ighalo has taken 31 shots, Troy Deeney 23, Étienne Capoue 13 and Almen Abdi 11. Though as a team Villa are less shot-shy than both West Brom and Newcastle, their shots are also the least well-placed in the division – only 25.37% are on target, compared with 38.51% of the shots they let other teams have against them. Last weekend Everton, on their way to a 4-0 victory over Villa, had nine shots on target; in their last five matches put together Villa themselves have managed 10. They have not simply failed to win matches, they have failed to give themselves any chance of winning matches. On the plus side, between now and the turn of the year they play three of the bottom five, as well as Watford and an out-of-sorts West Ham, but that puts pressure on them to start performing immediately. Incremental improvement is no good to them now; Remi Garde needs to effect total transformation. He will have to do it without Jack Grealish, whose night out in Manchester last Saturday has cost him a place in the squad for this game. Deeney, meanwhile, is a Birmingham City fan who was once offered a trial at Villa but couldn’t be bothered to turn up. “It’s a great stadium and they’re a big club,” he says. “To score in front of the Holte End, with thousands swearing at me, will be lovely.” SB
8) Which Manchester City will turn up? And will it really matter?
Traditionally the visit of Southampton is a fixture that Manchester City have little trouble with – the last time the Saints won at the Etihad was in City’s first season at the ground, with James Beattie and Kevin Phillips scoring the goals that beat a home side including Michael Tarnat, Paul Bosvelt and Steve McManaman in the starting XI. The Southampton manager Paul Sturrock said afterwards that he could “smell the fear” at the ground. Things are nothing like as bad now but these are slightly uncertain times for City – they’re uncertain whether they’ve really turned the corner in Europe, uncertain about their chances of a third Premier League title in five years, and fundamentally uncertain about which side will turn up on any given matchday. Will it be the City who have lost 4-1 to Liverpool and 4-1 to Spurs and, most shockingly of all, drawn 0-0 with Aston Villa? Or the one that despatched Bournemouth and Newcastle for five and six goals respectively and won comfortably at Goodison and against Chelsea? Fortunately for Manuel Pellegrini and his side, Southampton, too, have been a model of inconsistency and they’ve yet to beat anyone in the top half (their five wins coming against teams all in the bottom seven: Norwich, Swansea, Chelsea, Bournemouth and Sunderland). Ronald Koeman’s ploy away from home has been to keep things as tight as possible and the absence of Graziano Pellè isn’t going to encourage him to open up. This might be just the game City need after last weekend’s chastening defeat. JA
9) Sunderland to be tested by Stoke’s brilliant efficiency
- Appearances
- 3
- Shots blocked
- 3
- Clearances
- 19
Stoke conceded five goals in their first three away games in the Premier League, but since the 2-0 defeat at Arsenal on 12 September they have played five away games in all competitions (four in the league, one at Fulham in the Capital One Cup), conceded none, endured one goalless draw and won the rest 1-0. In the league the two goals Watford scored in winning at the Britannia Stadium last month are the only ones they have conceded in their last six games. The recent return from injury of Ryan Shawcross, who did not start a league game until 31 October and is thus yet to be involved in the concession of a league goal this season, has further strengthened a defence in which Philipp Wollscheid has particularly excelled. The result is a remarkable record of astonishing efficiency, a goal-to-point conversion ratio that would be hard to improve: they have scored only one more goal than Aston Villa this season, but have won 14 more points. The game will be officiated by Mike Dean, who once provoked Tony Pulis into fury by sending off three Stoke players in five games over a single season, 2009-10. “We sent a letter saying we didn’t think we receive a fair crack of the whip with Mike Dean,” he fumed after the last of those decisions. “We are making a case that Mike Dean doesn’t do very well for Stoke. We compiled an in-depth set of statistics, but nobody takes any notice and he gets a game again. I will not speak to him because it’s a waste of time.” Coincidentally, Dean has not sent off a Stoke player in 11 matches since. SB
- Sunderland’s Allardyce refuses to rule out selling Defoe
- Hughes says Stoke can follow Southampton and challenge top six
10 Bournemouth need a confidence boost (and a striker)
Bournemouth were much the better side against Swansea last weekend yet came away with just a point to show for it. They were the better side against Newcastle before the international break and were still beaten 1-0. A striker to turn dominance into a few more goals will clearly be a priority in January – the rumour mill has churned up a series of prospective reinforcements: Bradley Wright-Phillips, Charlie Austin, Jordan Rhodes, Lewis Grabban and Dwight Gayle have all been mentioned – but Eddie Howe’s side also need to be in a position where they can entice players to the south coast. And that’s the worry. Howe mentioned a lack of confidence as an issue as early as September and it remains to be seen what effect two excellent performances that have yielded just the solitary point will have on morale. They’ll certainly need to be close to their best against an Everton side who were superb against Aston Villa last time out and are in the midst of a friendly-looking set of fixtures – Roberto Martínez’s team don’t face one of the traditional bigger boys until Tottenham visit Goodison on 3 January. Points-wise, the seventh-placed Toffees are as close to 15th-placed Chelsea as they are to fourth-placed Arsenal but they have an opportunity to push on over the next month or so. JA
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Leicester | 13 | 8 | 28 |
| 2 | Man Utd | 13 | 10 | 27 |
| 3 | Man City | 13 | 14 | 26 |
| 4 | Arsenal | 13 | 12 | 26 |
| 5 | Tottenham Hotspur | 13 | 13 | 24 |
| 6 | West Ham | 13 | 4 | 21 |
| 7 | Everton | 13 | 8 | 20 |
| 8 | Southampton | 13 | 5 | 20 |
| 9 | Liverpool | 13 | 2 | 20 |
| 10 | Crystal Palace | 13 | 1 | 19 |
| 11 | Stoke | 13 | -1 | 19 |
| 12 | West Brom | 13 | -5 | 17 |
| 13 | Watford | 13 | -2 | 16 |
| 14 | Swansea | 13 | -4 | 14 |
| 15 | Chelsea | 13 | -6 | 14 |
| 16 | Norwich | 13 | -8 | 12 |
| 17 | Newcastle | 13 | -12 | 10 |
| 18 | Sunderland | 13 | -12 | 9 |
| 19 | AFC Bournemouth | 13 | -13 | 9 |
| 20 | Aston Villa | 13 | -14 | 5 |
