Category: Football (Soccer)

Eddie Howe is synonymous with tidiness, efficiency, time management and, above all, control. Given that there is nothing remotely slapdash, careless or wasteful about Newcastle’s manager, his team’s increasing penchant for losing often hard-won authority is proving the most puzzling of paradoxes.

Newcastle have developed a habit of throwing leads away this season and, 2-0 up thanks to a Nick Woltemade double, they were at it again.

Press conference updates on Viktor Gyökeres, Tyler Adams and Arne Slot discussing Mohamed Salah

It is a case of north London against Merseyside as Tottenham host Liverpool and Everton face leaders Arsenal

Saturday 12.30pm TNT Sports 1 Venue St James’ Park

Ngumoha could step up for Liverpool, injury-hit Newcastle need to bounce back and Parker feels the heat

• Top scorers: check the latest Premier League standings

Chelsea are fourth in the Premier League and Newcastle 12th but the gap between them is only six points. It dictates that, given Eddie Howe’s ambitions of qualifying for the Champions League via the league, this is a pivotal fixture. How Newcastle’s manager must hope Enzo Maresca’s recent cryptic hints about potential discord behind the scenes at Stamford Bridge somehow help to undo the visitors on Tyneside, cutting the aforementioned gap in half. If off-pitch harmony endures at St James’ Park, Newcastle’s Saudi Arabian ownership will, nonetheless, be keen to see Howe and his players make further amends for last Sunday’s ignominious defeat at Sunderland. Falling nine points behind Chelsea may not be well received in Riyadh. Howe might have been tempted to start with a back five but with Tino Livramento the latest victim of a defensive injury crisis, he only possesses sufficient fit personnel to staff a four-man rearguard. Assuming Howe sticks with his preferred 4-3-3 it will be intriguing to see whether he drops a winger and fields Yoane Wissa to Nick Woltemade’s left in attack. Or does he opt for a potentially more fluid 4-2-3-1 with Woltemade as the No 10 and Wissa at No 9? Louise Taylor

Newcastle v Chelsea, Saturday 12.30pm (all times GMT)

Bournemouth v Burnley, Saturday 3pm

Brighton v Sunderland, Saturday 3pm

Manchester City v West Ham, Saturday 3pm

Wolves v Brentford, Saturday 3pm

From near-total control to collapse to late Bruno Fernandes and Matheus Cunha goals that seemed to put Manchester United on the right end of a 4-3 festive thriller. But then, yet more horrific defending allowed Eli Junior Kroupi, on as a substitute, to score Bournemouth’s third equaliser and the points were shared.

Fernandes’s strike was a pinpoint curled free-kick and Cunha’s finish came 120 seconds later when Benjamin Sesko’s cross from the left hit Adrien Truffert and diverted into the Brazilian’s path.

Spurs have faced low moments in their history, and this is one of them. How will the club respond in the post-Daniel Levy era?

• Sign up for Soccer with Jonathan Wilson here

Tottenham Hotspur, Thomas Frank said after Sunday’s 3-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest, are “not a quick fix”. That’s been true for probably 40 years, since they lurched into financial crisis amid boardroom shenanigans in the 1980s, becoming the first soccer club to list on the stock exchange and embarking on a disastrous programme of diversification (the highlight perhaps being becoming Hummel’s distributor in the UK, a role they performed so badly that Southampton took a page of their own programme to blame Spurs for the fact that their shirts were not being delivered).

Right now, Spurs would probably settle for even a little bit of a fix, a slow hint of progress, a flicker of hope, anything to break them out of the current grim spiral. They have won just one of their last seven league games. When they beat Everton on 26 October, they were third, five points behind the leaders. Sunday’s defeat leaves them 11th, 14 points behind Arsenal. Given that Spurs finished 17th last season, perhaps that is not so unexpected – and the compacted nature of the table means they are only four points off fifth and probable Champions League qualification. But, equally, 22 points represents their lowest Premier League tally after 16 games since 2008.

Arsenal and City march on, Sunderland enjoy bragging rights, and Ekitiké gives Liverpool fans a much-needed lift

Mikel Arteta had the option to frame things differently. The Arsenal manager was even teed up to do so with a generous question in the press conference that followed his side’s 2-1 win against Wolves on Saturday. Had his team shown the toughness of champions by recovering from a 90th-minute concession to steal all three points? “That’s something very positive but I don’t put it down to resilience,” Arteta replied. It was of a piece with him essentially reading the riot act to his players. They had not turned up at the start, he suggested, and the less said about the closing stages, the better – apart from the last-gasp winner. It is rare to hear Arteta be so critical but he knew his team had got away with one and he wanted them to know, too. Arsenal have a rare blank midweek before they go to Everton for another 8pm kick-off next Saturday. The standards must be higher. David Hytner

Match report: Arsenal 2-1 Wolves

Match report: Crystal Palace 0-3 Manchester City

Match report: Sunderland 1-0 Newcastle

Match report: Liverpool 2-0 Brighton

Match report: West Ham 2-3 Aston Villa

Match report: Chelsea 2-0 Everton

Jordan Henderson’s first goal for Brentford was cancelled out by a towering header from Dominic Calvert-Lewin

13 min It’s all fairly cagey. Leeds, who look very comfortable for a side who only recently switched to a back three, are having plenty of possession in the middle third.

9 min Almost a chance for Leeds, who have settled nicely on the ball. Bogle slides a pass down the side to Calvert-Lewin, who slips Van den Berg cleverly and guides a low ball into the six-yard box. Okafor is slightly on his heels and Brentford are able to clear.

Nick Woltemade’s own goal gave Sunderland a Tyne-Wear derby win, while Villa, Man City and Forest beat West Ham, Palace and Spurs respectively

Talking of Brobbey, it’s an absolute crime if he doesn’t get a song to this, no 1 on this day on in 1993.

If I was a rich club looking for a midfielder, I’d be very interested in Noah Sadiki, who has a bit of everything. My guess is Sunderland look to run Newcastle off the pitch in midfield – not easily done – and to play off Brobbey, with Enzo Le Fee their wildcard. If they can get him on the ball, they’ll hope he can pick runs in behind with balls slid down the sides of defenders, and I’d also expect plenty of crosses and box-crashing from the midfielders.

Even in a week when they have beaten the mighty Real Madrid in the Santiago Bernabéu, this must rank as one of Pep Guardiola’s most satisfying victories of the season.

It was Oliver Glasner who condemned the Manchester City manager to his first season without a major trophy since his first year in English football when Crystal Palace enjoyed the greatest day in their history at the FA Cup final back in May. So outsmarting one of the Premier League’s shrewdest operators would have provided Guardiola extra contentment, not to mention helping City move back to within two points of leaders Arsenal.