Fifty up for Arsenal, so either way this Premier League race is going to be spectacular – The Warm-Up

MONDAY’S BIG STORIES

The table doesn’t lie

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.

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.

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’

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

*You see, the joke there is that they are currently very, very pessimistic and aren’t confident at all. Hilarious, I know.