Arsenal are five points clear at the Premier League summit after a convincing 2-0 win over second place Liverpool, while third-placed Chelsea surprisingly lost 2-0 at Newcastle.
At the Emirates Santi Cazorla put the Gunners ahead when he followed up his own header which has rebounded off the post, to fore past Simon Mignolet. Then Aaron Ramsey continued his brilliant play with his 10th goal of the season. According to the opta site whoscored.com, Ramsey has been the best player in the Premier League this season.
In the early game, Newcastle United rebounded from their disappointing performance in the Tyneside derby last week to beat Chelsea 2-0. Yoann Gouffran broke the deadlock, stooping to head Yohan Cabaye’s deep free-kick back across Petr Čech before Loïc Rémy wrapped up all three points for Alan Pardew’s side.
Manchester City put Norwich to the sword as seven different players scored as City thumped Norwich 7-0, a defeat that could see the end of Chris Hughton’s tenure at Norwich manager. In this game, Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini dropped England goalkeeper Joe Hart and a series of high profile mistakes.
Don’t look now but Manchester United are only three points back of Chelsea after they took apart Fulham with a 20-minute owning period that saw them score three goals. United are still nowhere there near their best, but the criticism of David Moyes has been a little over the top considering that Chelsea and Man city are both within three points of the champions.
Elsewhere, a wind-assisted punt downfield from goalkeeper Asmir Begović put Stoke City ahead 13 seconds into their match with Southampton, who levelled through Jay Rodriguez. Remarkably, the Stoke goalkeeper is now joint top scorer in the league for Stoke this season!
Finally Hull beat nine-man Sunderland 1-0 while West Ham and Aston Villa played to a boring 0-0 draw.