Bad teams do bad things. And sometimes good teams need a little luck to win titles. Arsenal played poorly but was saved by the losing ways of the worst team in the Premier League. In fairness, Wolverhampton displayed a determination in locking down the Gunners with a parked five-man bus in back. The effort went for naught, however, when Wolves defender Yerson Mosquera headed the ball into his own net in the 94th minute to hand Arsenal a 2-1 win at the Emirates. The gifted points kept Arsenal ahead of Manchester City in the table.
The Citizens dominated Crystal Palace 3-0 on Sunday and would have taken over first place on goal differential if Arsenal had drawn. Instead, Manchester City remains lurking two points behind Arsenal and looks more frightening by the moment. Erling Haaland scored twice and Phil Foden scored his sixth goal in his last five matches across all competitions as the Manchester City attack is reaching peak form.
Six league wins in a row speaks to Aston Villa’s form as Morgan Rogers scored the winner with his second goal of the match in a 3-2 victory over West Ham. Villa remained just a point behind Manchester City, two points off the table lead.
Relegation zone occupant West Ham slipped further from safety with Leeds’s 1-1 draw at Brentford which puts the Whites three points clear of the Hammers with a superior goal differential as well.
Chelsea moved back to the top four with a 2-0 win over Everton which saw Cole Palmer score for the first time since September in his injury marred season. Palmer was playing only his seventh Premier League match of the season due to a groin injury which has probably doomed Chelsea’s title hopes for this season.
Cole Palmer hits the ‘cold’ celebration for the first time since September 🥶 pic.twitter.com/NjcLLDIA4E
— ESPN UK (@ESPNUK) December 13, 2025
Manchester United has no title delusions but the Red Devils are surprisingly in striking range of the top four. Even more surprising is that the club is now sometimes an entertaining watch. United remained sixth in the table after a wild 4-4 draw with Bournemouth at Old Trafford. The see-saw, eight goal extravaganza saw both sides relinquish leads and mount comebacks in furious fashion amid 38 shots being launched in aggregate by the two sides. Eight different players found the net. While disappointing to the home crowd, Eli Junior Kroupi’s 84th minute equalizer for Bournemouth capped what was a fair sharing of points by two worthy adversaries.
Liverpool and Sunderland won over the weekend to join Crystal Palace and Manchester United on 26 points. Mohamed Salah broke the Premier League record held by Wayne Rooney for goal involvements with a single club as Liverpool defeated Brighton 2-0 at Anfield. Salah recorded an assist on Hugo Ekitike’s second goal of the match to move past Rooney with 277 combined goals and assists. We now wait to see if that was Salah’s final goal involvement for Liverpool. He is off to the African Cup and may be departing in the January transfer window due to his soured relationship with Manager Arne Slot. In a strange season for the defending champions, Ekitike once again proved his worth with his brace for the Reds. As another high-priced summer acquisition, Ekitike began the season strongly before being brushed aside by Slot after the acquisition of Alexander Isak. With Salah gone and Isak largely useless, Slot might do well to make better use of Ekitike.
Isak’s former team, Newcastle, still struggles to replace the production that the Swedish striker provided in his purple patch of last season. The Magpies were 1-0 losers to their hated regional rival Sunderland 1-0 at the Stadium of Light on Sunday. The only goal came by way of an own goal on a fouled header by Nick Woltemade, the striker procured to replace Isak. Sunderland defeated their rival for the fourth consecutive time at home, the first time that has happened in the long rivalry. The Black Cats remain undefeated at home in the Premier League, a standard matched only by current table topper Arsenal.
Tottenham Hotspur, meanwhile, had been abysmal at home but a successful traveling side until Sunday’s decisive 3-0 thumping at Nottingham Forest. Callum Hudson-Odoi scored two of the goals while Ibrahim Sangare not only assisted on both of Odoi’s tallies but scored a goal of his own for Nottingham Forest. Spurs goaltender Guglielmo Vicario was just as helpful as Sangare on the two Hudson-Odoi goals and is becoming a problem for Manager Thomas Frank. Forest, meanwhile, won for the third time in five league matches to move five points above the relegation line under the strong hand of Manager Sean Dyche, a seasoned survivor of rumbles at the bottom of the table.
Burnley, meanwhile, looks comfortably settled in the relegation zone after its 3-2 home loss to Fulham. The Clarets have lost seven league matches in a row and 12 of their 16 matches. Burnley Manager Scott Parker is thus tracking toward a third relegation from the Premier League after previous relegations as manager of Fulham and Bournemouth. Like Forest’s Sangare, Fulham’s Harry Wilson had two assists and a goal in the Cottagers’ victory which ended a 34-year winless run for Fulham at Turf Moor.
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