Updated at 19.48
1. Man United’s bittersweet unbeaten run
IN HIS SHORT time as Manchester United boss, Jose Mourinho has already achieved a feat that Alex Ferguson never managed in all his time at the club.
Sunday’s disconcerting 1-1 draw with Swansea at Old Trafford meant the team had set a new club record for the longest unbeaten run during a single top-flight season.
Yet of all these matches, almost half were draws, with the Red Devils winning 13 out of 25 fixtures during the time period in question.
Less impressively, the outcome also meant United had reached double figures in terms of home draws for just the second time in their history — Old Trafford witnessed 11 stalemates during the 1980-81 season.
Consequently, the unbeaten run was overshadowed by Mourinho’s side’s continuing struggles to break opponents down.
So how can this problem be solved? The Portuguese boss was criticised to a degree for constantly playing the same starting XI at Chelsea, but perhaps United could do with less rotation.
Attackers thrive on confidence, and this attribute tends to be in increasingly short supply the more uncertain of his place a player feels.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan is a prime example. The Armenian international was barely part of the team at all in the first half of the season, and he has been in and out ever since.
The player, who United signed last summer for approximately £30 million on the back of being named the Bundesliga Players’ Player of the Season and producing 15 assists for Dortmund, has impressed sporadically since moving to England.
Yet for all his obvious talent, Mkhitaryan was given just 10 minutes at the end against the Welsh side yesterday. Mourinho surely needs to show more faith in order to get the best out of arguably United’s most naturally gifted attacking midfielder.
2. Title race looks all but over
Tottenham’s convincing victory over Arsenal yesterday ensures there is still a degree of suspense in the Premier League title race.
However, it would be a genuine shock now if Chelsea don’t claim the Premier League title for the fifth time in their history (or sixth including the 1954–55 First Division triumph).
Assuming Spurs win all their remaining fixtures, which is by no means guaranteed, particularly as they still have to face Man United, Chelsea would have to slip up twice in their remaining four fixtures to miss out on the big prize.
Dropping points in one game seems far-fetched while two is positively outlandish given how confidently Antonio Conte’s men have been playing lately. The 2-0 loss at Manchester United now looks an anomaly, as does the 2-1 home defeat to Crystal Palace, the latter being one of those games where all luck appeared to desert the hosts.
Having overcome two potential banana skins this week, beating Southampton and Everton with relative comfort, their run-in could hardly be much easier — Middlesbrough, West Brom, Watford and Sunderland.
Of those four teams, only Boro really still have anything left to play for, and even if the Premier League’s second-from-bottom side manage to pull off a huge shock, the Blues only need three wins to be confirmed as champions of England.
3. Can Tottenham dominate in years to come?
The Premier League title may be beyond Tottenham this year, but the future is looking very promising for the club.
It was hard not to read Sunday’s impressive 2-0 victory over Arsenal as symbolic in many ways.
In the last-ever North London Derby to be played at White Hart Lane, Tottenham secured just their eighth win against Arsenal in 50 games between the two since Arsene Wenger took charge of the Gunners, thereby guaranteeing they would finish above their bitter rivals in the table for the first time in 22 years.
And while the outcome of the match was far from unprecedented, it’s hard to think of another time when Spurs managed to beat a Wenger-managed team so convincingly in the Premier League.
On the evidence of this season, Mauricio Pochettino appears to be building something special at Tottenham, in stark contrast with their stale and stagnant North London rivals.
Keeping hold of their big players for the foreseeable future is of course key, and whether Pochettino stays or goes is also far from a foregone conclusion.
But put yourself in the manager’s shoes — the easy decision would arguably be to take over a super club such as Real Madrid or Barcelona. But an entirely different challenge would await him in those environments and there is no guarantee he could emulate his success at Tottenham.
Despite the obvious benefits of moving to one of Europe’s superpowers, the Argentine boss may well tempted to stay where he is and try to build the type of legacy that Wenger achieved at Arsenal, but which the Frenchman is increasingly undermining given his side’s multitude of inept performances in recent times.
4. Could Aguero and Jesus play in the same team?
Man City were left frustrated following a 2-2 draw with Middlesbrough on Sunday, in the process failing to capitalise on slip-ups by fellow top-four rivals United and Arsenal.
But despite the unfortunate outcome, the game was not without positives for boss Pep Guardiola.
Gabriel Jesus scored a vital late equaliser to dent a dogged Boro’s Premier League survival hopes, ruining what had been an impressively disciplined display by Steve Agnew’s side for large sections of the match.
The 20-year-old Brazilian, who now has managed four goals in four starts, looks an exceptional talent and well worth the €33 million plus add-ons that City reportedly paid the youngster’s former club Palmeiras for his services last summer.
The faith Guardiola has shown in the young striker has led many pundits to suggest that Sergio Aguero’s days at the club are numbered.
But the 28-year-old Argentine international registered his 18th goal of the season from the penalty spot on Sunday and played up front alongside Jesus for almost all of the game.
So perhaps the City manager believes there is in fact scope to accommodate both these remarkably talented players in his starting XI.
5. Will relegation be a blessing in disguise for Sunderland?
For a long time, Sunderland have been one of those clubs, like Arsenal, where you could easily predict how the season would go from the outset.
Year after year, the Black Cats would struggle badly at the start of the campaign, their manager would be sacked and a new boss would be hired and narrowly succeed in steering a previously hapless outfit to safety, as sudden signs of life emerge amid the make-or-break end-of-season run-in.
But like Arsenal, albeit in a completely different context, they have reached a new low this year, as they were relegated from the Premier League following a 1-0 loss to Bournemouth at the Stadium of Light on Saturday.
In 34 games, David Moyes’ side have picked up just 21 points. The dire quality of the football on show at the Stadium of Light this season means few neutrals will lament their absence from the top flight.
But relegation may not necessarily constitute the disaster it is often portrayed as being.
Look at Newcastle — a season in the Championship has given them a new lease of life, a rare opportunity for their supporters to celebrate rather than commiserate with one another.
The prospect of at least one campaign in England’s second-tier league may seem grim at face value, but at least it puts an end to the Groundhog Day-esque spiral Sunderland have for so long found themselves locked in during their purgatorial stay in the top flight.
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