Seven Games To Go...
Leicester City moved one step closer to the Barclays Premier League title with a nervy 1-0 win over Alan Pardew's struggling Crystal Palace. Palace are still without a league win in 2016. This is Leicester's 4th 1-0 win in their last five games, which shows exactly how adept they are proving at grinding out tough results against teams down the bottom scrapping for their lives. They're doing everything right at this stage of the season and now look increasingly likely to win the league, as they are now eight points clear of Spurs, who play Bournemouth tomorrow. With every Leicester victory, the league looks increasingly like a two horse race, as Arsenal and City scramble to make up lost ground.
But simply put, Leicester don't look like throwing this away. Apart from some nervy moments towards the end, they looked incredibly solid against Palace, and are succeeding through an old school style of football that worked so well for Sir Alex Ferguson's Manchester United for so long. Two big strong central defenders, two banks of four, energetic central midfield players, some real, top class quality out on the wings, and a front partnership in which one player dominates the headlines and the goals and the other is an exceptional support player. They don't change their team much, keep consistency at the heart of their team and are lit up by moments of quality from their two or three exceptional forward players. It's been a terrific team effort, with Morgan and Huth at the back rock solid, the perennially underrated Drinkwater and Kante doing a huge job in the center of midfield, and Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy scoring the goals. And that was exactly how it proved today, as Morgan and Huth were awesome at the back, Kante and Drinkwater ran and ran and it was Mahrez who scored the game's only goal after a terrific low ball across the box from Vardy. It was a predatory finish from Mahrez, who had previously missed a golden one on one opportunity with Wayne Hennessey. With 16 goals and 11 assists this season, there's no doubting who the player of the season has to be now, even if by some miracle Leicester don't win the league.
This results piles the pressure onto Spurs and City tomorrow. Spurs will be wary of facing a Bournemouth side in red hot form, playing exceptionally well and full of confidence. Nevertheless, you have to say that the quality probably isn't quite there for Bournemouth, and you would back Spurs to comfortably win that match and move back within five of Leicester. But that said, even at this stage, five points is a huge margin and Leicester are getting closer and closer with every match. You fancy that three or four more wins would do it for them and they're showing no signs of slowing down. They have enough good fixtures left in their run in that hope is rapidly turning into expectation, Seven games left, and 17 points to mathematically win the title, although realistically you would expect Spurs to drop at least three or four points, so let's say four wins from here will give Leicester the title. And with 22 points from a possible 27, they have hit form at just the right time.
Arsenal Put The Pressure On
And Arsenal piled the pressure on the teams around them by comfortably beating a very poor Everton side, who never really threatened to make a game of it once Danny Welbeck had been slid in by Alexis Sanchez, and rounded Robles to put Arsenal ahead with just over five minutes on the clock. And this victory was compounded by from Arsenal it has to be said, the likes of Ozil and Sanchez hitting somewhere near their best form and young Iwobi capitalising on some poor defending to slot in his first Premier League goal. And it could and should have been more for Arsenal, but for some truly woeful refereeing, as Sanchez was denied a stonewall penalty, and Olivier Giroud had a goal wrongfully chalked off, as he was adjudged to have fouled Phil Jagielka, when the latter tripped over his own feet. But ultimately, the ref's performance meant very little, as Everton's was little better, and they never threatened Arsenal, even after Wenger inexplicably left a crippled David Ospina on the field when he was clearly injured.
With the Manchester derby tomorrow, and Liverpool facing a tricky trip to Southampton, this was the perfect result for Arsenal to start the weekend with, and really turn the screw on the other teams fighting for those two Champions League spots. And they got even more good fortune as a late, and blatantly wrong, Cesc Fabregas penalty salvaged a point for Chelsea against a West Ham side who failed to move into the top four themselves at the expense of Man City. West Ham will consider themselves desperately unlucky, as twice they moved into the lead in this game and twice they were pegged back late on in each half, a Fabregas free kick stopping them going in at half time 1-0 up.
And another team who had a good weekend was Norwich City, who secured a massive away win 1-0 at West Brom to move out of the drop zone and push both Sunderland and Newcastle further into the mire ahead of tomorrow's Tyne-Wear derby. It was Robbie Brady who scored the only goal of the match, and it was a vital one as Norwich managed to build on last weekend's impressive goalless draw with City. They would have been slightly disappointed to see Swansea, another side who are really struggling this season, pull off a 1-0 win against the hapless Villa, but not surprised and realistically they just need to focus on staying ahead of Sunderland and Newcastle.
And elsewhere Stoke continued their good run with a 2-1 win away at Watford, with Joselu and Walters providing the goods for them. That result puts Stoke 7th, back ahead of Southampton and Liverpool who play each other tomorrow and just a point behind Man United, who admittedly have two games in hand on them now. Realistically, European football is probably just out of Stoke's reach, but a top eight or nine finish would be an exceptional result for them this season.
The Hard and Fast Section
- Virat Kohli showed his class, keep India's WT20 hopes alive.
- Wales put Italy to the sword. Obviously.
- Ireland saw off Scotland to push the Scots 4th.
- And Sam Austin scored again as Leam move 3rd.
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