Fifty up for Arsenal, so either way this Premier League race is going to be spectacular – The Warm-Up
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Updated 23/01/2023 at 09:02 GMT
Arsenal have 50 points at the halfway stage of the season, and now the prospect of a Premier League title race rests on the two meetings with Manchester City and a certain Norwegian striker staying fit and healthy. Elsewhere, Frank Lampard will have his phone on silent after Everton slipped further into the relegation mire, and the Chelsea “ice rink” in the WSL.
Ten Hag 'annoyed' after Man Utd concede late winner at Arsenal
MONDAY’S BIG STORIES
The table doesn’t lie
First off, thank you Arsenal. And thank you Manchester United. The three previous Premier League games broadcast in the UK this past weekend all ended 0-0 (Leeds-Brentford was entertaining in truth, but the less said about Liverpool-Chelsea the better…) and so as armchair viewers we metaphorically headed to the Emirates with a bit of scepticism.
But, thankfully, what played out was one of the games of the season, with league leaders Arsenal winning a barnstorming clash against Manchester United. At the start of the season this weekend would have had Liverpool’s meeting with Chelsea as the potential title clash, but instead we learned from the drab Anfield draw exactly why those two sides are where they are.
The table doesn’t lie, and so we also witnessed why Arsenal are top and United are (currently) comfortably winning the race for Champions League football next season.
But the day belonged to Arsenal, to the still improving and utterly dynamic Bukayo Saka, to the taking his chances in Gabriel Jesus’ absence Eddie Nketiah, to a side on a staggering 50 points at the halfway stage of the season.
For that reason, it is going to be spectacular either way, this second half of the campaign.
On the one side, you have the prospect of Arsenal replicating this fast start and going on to accumulate a points total seemingly only Manchester City or Liverpool could achieve, a feat that would almost certainly see them claim a title that would arguably be the second-most surprising (very, very few had Arsenal in their top-four predictions, remember) in the Premier League era behind Leicester’s triumph.
On the flipside, you have the prospect of a spectacular collapse. Though on course for 100 points, few would expect them to actually reach three figures, but still, they are in such a strong position that you could argue City – five points behind having played a game more – cannot afford even two more losses in their remaining 18 games.
That is unless Arsenal fall apart, a prospect that is discussed weekly but is simply not materialising, with Mikel Arteta’s side silencing the doubters in emphatic fashion week after week and slowly but surely exorcising the demons of that fifth-placed finish last year. It’s on.
No race without Haaland
As mentioned, there is only one club capable of stopping Arsenal now, and with Erling Haaland “back” after that mini-mini-drought (yes, two games without a goal before the header against Spurs on Thursday, terrible), City will be looking and needing to put one of those runs together in the coming weeks.
The reason no one is handing Arsenal the title now is because everyone knows City are capable of doing exactly that, and few need reminding that they have the players, and perhaps more significantly an entire squad, capable of pushing through to the end when fatigue and injuries may impact clubs elsewhere.
One thing that is clear is that there will be no title race without Haaland. After that short-lived chat of ‘Are City actually better without him?’, a hat-trick against Wolves yesterday ended that debate and also took him to a staggering 25 goals, a tally that surpasses last season’s Golden Boot total by two with just the 18 games to go. That’s quite good.
Lamps out? Who even knows
Perhaps not as bizarre as the goings on below was the fallout from “El Sackico” at London Stadium on Saturday, where Everton owner Farhad Moshiri was in attendance to watch his side for the first time in 15 months.
That was seemingly telling, but what was rather confusing was his answer of “it’s not my decision” regarding Frank Lampard’s future after the 2-0 loss to West Ham.
With Everton 19th and without a league win since October, the writing seems to be on the wall for Lampard, but if the Everton owner has said it’s not his decision, who knows who truly wields the axe. Maybe today we'll learn Lampard's fate.
IN OTHER NEWS
The ‘ice rink’
Not something you read every day, but Chelsea’s WSL match at home to Liverpool yesterday was called off six minutes INTO the game at Kingsmeadow.
Despite passing a pitch inspection prior to kick-off, a series of slippy events prompted the referee to abandon the match, and understandably both managers were perplexed that it even went ahead in the first place.
"Like I said before, the game should have never gone ahead,” said Liverpool manager Matt Beard, with Chelsea’s Emma Hayes adding: “Matt Beard was upset that it even got to that point and he's right.
“You could see from the opening minutes that it was like an ice rink down the sides.”
IN THE CHANNELS
Init.
RETRO CORNER
Happy 39th birthday Arjen ‘Cut in, shoot, repeat’ Robben, let’s celebrate with that volley…
COMING UP
Our coverage of the Australian Open continues throughout the day, and then come the evening it’s a London derby in the Premier League as Tottenham head to Fulham. Bet Spurs fans are feeling real confident about that one*.
*You see, the joke there is that they are currently very, very pessimistic and aren’t confident at all. Hilarious, I know.
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