Premier League Round-Up: Matchweek 21
Arsenal new manager Mikel Arteta
Credit: Sky Sports
Matchweek 21:
Brighton 1-1 Chelsea
Burnley 1-2 Aston Villa
Newcastle 0-3 Leicester
Southampton 1-0 Tottenham
Watford 2-1 Wolves
Man City 2-1 Everton
Norwich 1-1 Crystal Palace
West Ham 4-0 Bournemouth
Arsenal 2-0 Man United
Liverpool 2-0 Sheff United
The Fight For 4th Place Is About The Only Storyline For The 2nd Half Of The Season
With the race for the title maybe more done and dusted than it’s ever been at this stage of the season, Liverpool have a 13 pt advantage with a game in hand, there’s not too many other story lines or much to look forward to in the 2nd half of the season. Outside of Liverpool’s inevitable title, you have Leicester City and Manchester City sitting in pretty good positions in 2nd and 3rd place. Each team has 45 and 44 pts which puts them a solid 8 pts over 4th place and 13 pts over 5th place. Barring a very bad run of form from either Leicester or Manchester City, they should be able to hang on to a top 4 spot.
Premier League Table through Matchweek 21
So that only leaves us with the 4th place spot in the table, which guarantees Champions League qualification, being up for grabs at this point in time. And at this point in time it seems to be a 3 team race between Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham. And maybe…..just maybe Arsenal could get themselves into this picture. So through 21 games Chelsea currently hold the 4th place spot with a 5pt advantage over Man United in 5th place. Tottenham are 6pts back of Chelsea in 6th place. One would think that as a Chelsea fan I would have to be pretty confident in finishing 4th with a 5pt advantage already, but I’m far from it. Chelsea had a solid run in the first few months of the season but the wheels have been falling off since the start of December. Fortunately for us, Manchester United and Tottenham have been every bit just as inconsistent. Tottenham was the hot team to start December after bringing in Mourinho and had a chance to erase the deficit between Chelsea and Tottenham completely but lost to Chelsea in the Dec 22nd match-up and have only won 1 of their last 4 games since. Then it was Manchester United who had a strong run of games and had a chance to cut the deficit to just 2 pts this week but lost to Arsenal and are still 5 pts back. Then again we have Arsenal who are 9 pts back of Chelsea in 10th place. In all honesty Wolves who are tied with Tottenham on points have a better shot at 4 than Arsenal, but I feel like I have to include Arsenal in the conversation because they obviously have the talent within the squad and have a new coach, which is the ultimate wildcard. In the end I actually have no clue how this is going to turn out. To me it’s almost a coin flip at this point and if I had to lean towards a team I’d go towards Tottenham, but at least that’ll give us something to look forward to in the 2nd half of the season.
Other Notes:
Arsenal pick up their first win, and it was a big one, under new manager Mikel Arteta with a 2-0 win over Manchester United. Had Arsenal not chocked the Chelsea game away in the last 10 mins they would have 2 wins in their first 2 games under Arteta, and it would be two very big wins. Still a lot to look forward to for Arsenal fans with how the team has looked under their new manager.
Chelsea miss out on a 1-0 victory over Brighton after Alireza Jahanbaksh, holy hell what a name, scores an insane bicycle kick goal in the dying minutes of the game. But can’t complain too much as a Chelsea fan because the goal was very much deserved by Brighton, who had put up a great fight all game long.
That wasn’t the only great goal scored this week as Leicester City took on Newcastle and looked to get back to their winning ways, James Maddison drilled a missile from outside of the box into the top corner of the goal. Leicester would go on to take down Newcastle 3-0.
I feel like I haven’t talked about Liverpool enough considering what they are doing to every team they play but that’s also the reason I haven’t talked about them that much. Liverpool seem to beat every team they face 2-0 and the two goals are scored by Mo Salah and Sadio Mane which is exactly what happened in their match against Sheffield United.
FA Cup action went on this weekend but no big upsets to report. Pretty much everybody won that you’d expect. Man United did tie Wolves and Tottenham did tie Middlesbrough, so those teams are going to have a rematch in 2 weeks.
Premier League action back again this weekend.
Thanny