Why Manchester City should still be anxious about Arsenal in title battle

Tottenham host Manchester City this weekend in the Premier League.

Liverpool vs. Aston Villa – (Saturday, 10 a.m. ET, Premier League Extratime) – [STREAM]. McLaren may need two positive results back-to-back against Chelsea and Manchester City, to save his job. Except maybe Sunderland’s Dick Advocaat.

Here is what you should be looking out for this weekend. While they edged Chelsea 2-1 at the Bridge, Palace suffered narrow 1-0 defeats against City & Tottenham. That output needs to improve this season and Hazard needs to take European games by the scruff of the neck to really prove that he can reach the class of Ronaldo.

But the challenge will be for Sergio Aguero to kick on. Perhaps, similarly to Aguero, still feeling the effects of his Copa America exploits, the Chilean has seen his WhoScored rating drop from 7.82 last season to 7.07 this. The fact that right-back Daryl Janmaat has had the most shots per game (1.4) of any Newcastle player is indicative of their woes going forwards, and their summer signings have certainly failed to catch fire so far.

Inspirational: Both can drag their team from mediocre to brilliant – Which will produce? The England skipper was struggling with his club form, but the goal against Ipswich will surely give him enough confidence.

With three wins and three draws, Claudio Ranieri’s men are the only side who have yet to taste defeat and they sit fourth. Can Vardy and Mahrez stun Wenger’s men? In truth, Kane is trying to reach the Argentine’s world-class status, and in terms of his overall game, it wouldn’t be a far-fetched goal.

Arsenal need a win in order to keep up with the two Manchester clubs and to show that they have recovered fro their 2-0 defeat to Chelsea last week.

He’s still covering every blade of glass, but he’s not seeing as much of the ball and when he does, he’s giving it away a lot more.

The arrival of Carlisle should have been the flawless opportunity for Liverpool to reassert themselves, to dust down after a hard run.

Beyond Rooney, it is a fixture that will mean much to the former Bayern Munich midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger and the United manager, Louis van Gaal, who could do with a resounding Champions League victory to get this group stage started.

“But I know John’s attitude and I know his quality”. Why is Danny Ings playing out wide?

The formation itself is clearly a good one.

After the match, McLaren continued with his post-game ritual of walking to the middle of the field to applaud the fans for their support.

The favourite is Liverpool’s Brendan Rodgers who could be gone regardless of the result against Aston Villa tonight.

With the introduction of Triple Captain, Bench Boost and All-out Attack tokens to be played at any point in the season, fantasy managers might want to plan out exactly when all of these new features should be activated.

That is based not just on the current standings, with Leicester and Arsenal both in the top six, but on a redrawing of the league table going back to late February and using the last 19 games – equivalent to half a season.

There are still concerns over Chelsea’s defence, however, and Mourinho must be anxious that the better sides in Europe will expose an unsteady back line in a similar way to Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium. Yet, you don’t see Hazard pushing (or chest bumping) any opponent and he doesn’t let the situation get the best of him either.

Here, we look at the stats behind their dry spells and whether we can expect a flood of goals to follow… All will be eyeing a starting spot.

Being dumped out of the Capital One Cup this week has left the Toon locals in even worse humor.

It was a shambolic first-half, in keeping with Sunderland’s start to the season, and things must change rapidly.

He comes up against another striker out of sorts, in Harry Kane.