The 23rd round of the Premier League saw some great action especially with the top two facing each other. Manchester City travelled to Stamford Bridge knowing a loss would allow Chelsea to open an 8 point lead at the top, the teams battled it out and it ended in a 1-1 draw. Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal and Tottenham all won to try and make it to the top 4 while Southampton lost. The relegation dogfight got more interesting with the bottom 6 sides all losing. With so much action, here are the talking points from the 23rd round of Premier League fixtures.
The race for the Champions League
Third placed Manchester United and seventh placed Liverpool are just separated by 5 points, that is how close the race for the UEFA Champions League spot is. Liverpool, United, Tottenham and Arsenal all won while Southampton were beaten by a dogged Swansea team. The Champions League is the goal for most of the sides in this quintet. Liverpool have really picked up their form and are unbeaten in their last 7 games, plus they have Daniel Sturridge who is back and scoring and looks as prestigious as the Cheltenham Champion for the Reds. United seem to be getting the results, even though they aren’t playing the best of football, the same can be said about Tottenham, who won yet again thanks to a late goal while Arsenal looked absolutely magnificent as they tore a hapless Aston Villa 5-0 at the Emirates.
Just 15 games remain for the season to end and it will be something of a lottery to guess just who ends up in the last two Champions League spots as of now.
The Big two cannot be separated
When Manchester City went up to take on Chelsea, the City manager said his team should not lose and they ensured that they came up with a point from their away performance. A couple of things stood out from the high intensity draw: Kurt Zouma is a beast and probably will get a lot more playing time as he was exceptional in defence with John Terry and snuffed out a City attack which featured two of the best players in the Premier League, Silva and Aguero.
The other thing which was noticeable was that it was Manchester City who did most of the attacking in the second half and Chelsea did look quite weary thanks to their Capital One Cup excursion against Liverpool in midweek. With Champions League games coming up for both the clubs, it might come down to squad depth rather than the starting XI which decides the Premier League title.
Down and out?
QPR, Hull and Leicester could be the teams who are in the bottom 3 but just 6 points separate bottom club Leicester City with 13th place Crystal Palace, the Premier League strugglers can actually make it out of the bottom three if they just put together a decent set of results, sadly that seems to be incapable from the likes of the bottom three.
Leicester and Hull were pretty awful while QPR cannot do anything away from home, the other clubs who should be worried about their position in the Premier League are Aston Villa and Burnley, who both seem to be getting sucked deeper into the trenches of the Premier League and if they are not careful they could end up getting relegated.