THE RACE IS ON
1. Chelsea (Played 20, Points 49) DESERVEDLY odds-on favourites to lift the Premier League trophy in May, there are all manner of signs to suggest Chelsea will put their defeat at White Hart Lane behind them and maintain their grip at the top of the table. A seven-point margin over all but one team is a healthy advantage at this stage of the season, while a number of their players know what it takes to win the league after doing so in 2014/15. Antonio Conte has rejuvenated the squad this season, they can score, defend and are certainly the team to beat. There are few in the starting XI Conte has been fortunate enough to field week-in and week-out this season but, as Arsenal and Spurs have shown, they are not unbeatable up against a team at the top of their game. Conte’s faith in 3-4-3 could be tested should one if his wingbacks suffer injury. They have also won a large number of their matches by just one goal.
All evidence points overwhelmingly in favour of Conte, 47, who has seemingly restored Chelsea to their former glory after a disastrous 2015/16 season that saw Jose Mourinho given the boot.
The Italian’s switch to a 3-4-3 has been credited with transforming the club and has brought the best out of the likes of Victor Moses — a player whose evolution this campaign would have been hard to predict six months ago. A Serie A title hat-trick with Juventus shows Conte knows what it takes to guide a club to a major trophy. 4. Manchester City (Played 20, Points 42) IN Sergio Agüero, Kevin de Bruyne and David Silva, City have three of the most potent attackers in the Premier League. They also have a manager in Pep Guardiola who has won the title in six of his seven seasons in top-flight management. There appears to be a disconnect between the way Guardiola wants his team to play and their ability to actually carry out his instructions. Defensively, in particular, City have looked all at sea at times this season, with the 4-2 defeat at Leicester City a humiliating experience. Goalkeeper Claudio Bravo has often looked uncertain, and his critics claim he is too lightweight for the Premier League. City also have a disciplinary problem that needs resolving, with the team receiving more red cards than any team this season. Guardiola has been a divisive figure this season, with many commentators seeming to revel in any difficulties the arch-aesthete is finding in the hurly-burly of the Premier League. It is too early to judge the Spaniard and his considerable pedigree suggests he will eventually get things right. Nonetheless he is feeling the pressure. Captain Vincent Kompany has had a horror run of injuries and there is concern that he will never be able to play regularly again. Ilkay Gundogan is out for the season with a knee injury, and Leroy Sane and Fabian Delph are both currently out. Fernandinho is currently banned for four matches after two Premier League red cards this season. The optimism of the start of the season when City won their first 10 matches has been replaced by a reluctant acceptance that it will take time for the team to fully adapt to Guardiola’s methods. That said, there is still confidence that City could close the gap on Chelsea and mount a late charge as they did in 2012 and 2014. City are still in the Champions League and are favourites to beat AS Monaco over two legs and advance to the quarterfinals. A less welcome distraction in recent weeks has been the constant red cards and recriminations around them, while Guardiola has looked preoccupied by his adversarial relationship with the media. City have won the title in two of the previous five seasons, but none since 2014. On both occasions, City have had to make up a lot of ground and have rattled off wins in the closing stages. Silva, Agüero, Chelsea are one of only two clubs in the Premier League not to have a single injury currently affecting their first-team squad. Kurt Zouma’s impending return to full fitness should only help matters further. Prior to the 2-0 loss against Spurs, few teams in Premier League history had ever been in better shape than the current Chelsea team, who had won their previous 13 top-flight matches to come within one of Arsenal’s record. A single defeat should not do much to derail their momentum. Almost none whatsoever. After failing to qualify for European football last season, Chelsea have been able to concentrate fully on domestic affairs. An FA Cup quest is the only other thing on Conte’s mind. A side that has not changed its personnel a vast amount since winning the Premier League title in 2014/15 should not be fazed by challenging for the title. Chelsea’s success this season has largely been a team affair with the second most miserly defence in the league, a revitalised Eden Hazard and a regular supply of goals from Diego Costa. But few can argue to have had a bigger impact than N’Golo Kante, who is fast becoming one of the best defensive midfielders in world football. A solid eight out of 10. The likes of Zouma, John Terry and Branislav Ivanovic should be enough to provide defensive cover, while Cesc Fabregas cannot even force his way into the starting XI higher up the pitch. Is this the chink in Chelsea’s armour? It is only a glimmer, but in matches against the top six this season Chelsea have won three and lost three. HAVING already played Spurs twice this season, Chelsea now only have Arsenal, Liverpool and the two Manchester sides still to face of the traditionally big clubs. Yes — and they should do so. — BB ETIHAD ICON: Sergio ’Kun’ Agüero Kompany and others remain from both of those triumphs, and will be hoping for a similar sprint finish this time around. Agüero. Guardiola dropped the Argentine for the trip to Barcelona but Agüero remains as lethal as ever and has scored 17 goals in 21 matches this season. Not as great as it has been in previous years. When needing a goal against Liverpool, Guardiola only had Kelechi Iheanacho and Jesus Navas to summon from the bench. Nolito, when fit, provides a reasonable alternative to Agüero, but City are too reliant on their big hitters to provide a spark. City have won two and lost three against the rest of the big six this season. The defeats against Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur were particularly chastening but the win at Manchester United demonstrated City’s fighting qualities. Three of the other top-six teams have to come to the Etihad, but the crux of City’s season will come at the start of April when they face Arsenal and Chelsea away in the space of four days. Given the way they have fought back before, seven points is not an insurmountable deficit for this team. Next season may be more realistic, however. — CE 2. Liverpool (Played 20, Points 44) GOALS — from all manner of different players. Liverpool are the highest-scoring side in the top flight, where they average almost 2.5 goals per match. Adam Lallana has been a revelation this season, while Sadio Mané and Roberto Firmino are at the top of their game. Their lack of a goalkeeper who exudes anything other than calamity. Jurgen Klopp has tried Loris Karius and Simon Mignolet at different times during the season with similar results. They could also do with somehow keeping Daniel Sturridge fit. Good luck with that. Unlike the Marmite managers in charge of the two Manchester clubs, Klopp is a man who is liked by the overwhelming majority of football supporters. He is tactically astute, rarely fails to win the respect of his own players and knows what it takes to succeed. Sturridge and James Milner both suffered injuries over the Christmas/New Year period but neither is expected to be out for long — although in Sturridge’s case something else will undoubtedly afflict him again soon. Joel Matip and Philippe Coutinho are nearing a return and the only long-term absentee is poor Danny Ings. Very positive. It has been three seasons since Liverpool were even vaguely involved in a title fight, but they look to be the main challengers to Chelsea this campaign and have lost just two league games all season. Victory over Manchester City on New Year’s Eve was a huge result. Like Chelsea, Klopp’s side are not in Europe this season and have reaped the rewards of focusing solely on domestic matters. A two-legged League Cup semifinal against Southampton should not distract too much from their push for the title. Historically it is incredibly high. In more recent times it is extremely poor. Having not won the title since 1989/90, Liverpool looked set to pip City three years ago before their famous slip-ups against Chelsea and Crystal Palace. While many of their players have never won domestic titles, Klopp lifted the Bundesliga trophy twice with Borussia Dortmund. Any team that regularly has Sturridge and Emre Can failing to make the starting XI must have some semblance of depth. The club has not been lucky with injuries though and, without European football to distract them, they should be fine. Go back to that Chelsea match of April 2014 and the omens are not great. However, this season Liverpool have been a totally different prospect. Of all the potential title challengers, Liverpool appear to have the easiest task purely based on remaining fixtures. Of the teams they still have to play in the top half of the table, Klopp’s side host six of them at Anfield with only three away games. They stand as good a chance as anyone of overtaking Chelsea and triumphing at the end of the season. — BB 5. Arsenal (Played 20, Points 41) ON THEIR day, Arsenal are still capable of playing spellbinding attacking football, and their 3-0 evisceration of Chelsea in September was arguably the Premier League performance of the season so far. When their more pacy players are available, Arsenal retain the ability to produce devastating counterattacks that have typified all of the best Arsène Wenger teams. Arsenal still struggle away in the biggest matches, and as Everton showed last month are still susceptible to a physical onslaught. Defensively there are concerns too, highlighted by a run of 12 matches without a clean sheet between October and December. Same old, same old. Wenger remains as wedded to his principles as when he arrived in north London more than 20 years ago, and continues to divide supporters. Entering the final year of his contract, fewer and fewer fans would like to see Wenger stay at the club. Typically, Arsenal have plenty of injury concerns, with Santi Cazorla’s unavailability until March the most damaging blow. When Cazorla has started this season Arsenal’s win percentage is 86%, whereas without him it’s 46%. Francis Coquelin is also out for a month with a hamstring injury and Theo Walcott has missed the last three matches with a calf injury. Hamstring victim Mathieu Debuchy will be out for a couple more weeks. Per Mertesacker and Danny Welbeck are back in training after long-term injuries, and Mesut Özil will soon return from illness. Pretty dark. There is a sense at the Emirates that lessons of previous seasons have not been learned, and the back-to-back defeats against Everton and Manchester City were worrying. Alexis Sánchez’s rage after the draw at Bournemouth summarised how many fans are feeling. A toss up between two midfielders. Coutinho is the player the club’s fans would least like to depart. Despite the Brazilian not playing since November, Liverpool are unbeaten in their last six matches and much of that is down to Lallana, who is enjoying himself. Arsenal resume their Champions League campaign in mid-February with a difficult tie against Bayern Munich. In many of the previous 10 seasons, Arsenal’s season has fallen apart in February and March when the burden of fighting on three fronts has overwhelmed their fragile squad. If they reach the latter stages of the FA Cup, there’s little to suggest they will be able to avoid a similar fate this time. The contract situations of Sánchez and Özil are distractions Wenger could do without. Petr Cech, Özil and Sánchez are among the players in the squad with experience of winning a top-flight title, but the biggest prize any of the team has won at Arsenal is the FA Cup. Largely the experience the squad has with Arsenal is of consistently finishing in the top four. Sánchez, who has scored or assisted 30 goals in his last 31 Premier League appearances, has carried the team for much of the season. Arsenal certainly have a bigger squad than ever before, but there remains a suspicion that many of the fringe players are not up to the required standard. The likes of Gabriel, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Mohamed Elneny have not exactly grasped their opportunities with both hands. Pretty woeful. Arsenal have a reasonable record playing the big teams at the Emirates, but away from home they struggle badly against the rest of the top six, winning just two of their last 21 trips to Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea, Tottenham and Liverpool. This season they are joint bottom of the top six minileague of matches against one another. Given their weakness on the road against title rivals, trips to come to Stamford Bridge, Anfield and White Hart Lane will not fill Arsenal fans with confidence. At least both Manchester clubs have to come to the Emirates. It looks doubtful — Arsenal have too much ground to make up, and there’s too little recent evidence to suggest they will win the big away matches required of them to be champions. — CE