The 17th round of the English Premier League season wrapped up on Monday night as Chelsea topped Stoke City 2-0 to cap off the week. Although Chelsea’s Eden Hazard limped with an injury near the end of the game, it was all smiles for the Blues, who are now at the top of the table at Christmas time for the fourth time in team history.
The games will continue to be played through the holidays but with this week in the books, let’s have a look back at what we learned from the EPL this weekend.
It’s Chelsea, Manchester City…..And Everyone Else
Man City barely got out of third gear in a 3-0 win over Crystal Palace…and that’s with them missing three strikers – including Sergio Aguero, who might be the player of the season so far. At the back, captain Vincent Kompany was also out. It didn’t matter one bit as Crystal Palace had no answers in the 3-0 defeat. That moved them into a tie with Chelsea briefly but the Blues, of course, regained their buffer with the win over Stoke City.
The bigger news here is that these two titans have established a wide gap between themselves and third place. City has seven-point lead over third-place Manchester United while Chelsea is at 10. Although we’re still quite early in the season, the EPL has become a two-horse race. Barring some sort of injury bug, the best chance that United – or anyone for that matter – might have of catching Chelsea and City is when the Champions League resumes. Chelsea has a huge matchup with Paris Saint-Germain while City takes on Barcelona. If they lose focus on the league, they might slip up, but other than, this could be a two-team race the rest of the way.
Merseyside Teams Are In Trouble
Martin Skrtel’s injury-time goal helped Liverpool escape with a 2-2 draw against Arsenal on Sunday, but they’re still only 10th in the league, one point up on their Merseyside rivals in blue. Everton were throttled 3-0 at Southampton on Saturday and while both of these teams might have had their eye on a European spot coming into the season, that didn’t look like it this weekend.
Liverpool’s issues have been well documented at the back. There have been some positives, such as their record at home (3-4-2) but it’s their performance away from Anfield that is the problem (3-0-5) as Liverpool have conceded 16 of their 24 goals against on the road. Everton has given up 27 goals this season and are hanging around because they’ve scored 27. If they struggle over the holiday period, the wallets might have to come out for Liverpool and Everton to buy reinforcements in January. Both teams have to make up about 10 points to get back into the European conversation.
QPR Will Have A Fight On Its Hands To Keep Charlie Austin
Speaking of January, expect to hear Charlie Austin’s name thrown around a lot in the transfer rumors at the top of the New Year. Austin is third in the league with 11 goals behind only Aguero and Chelsea’s Diego Costa, and he has scored 28 goals in 46 appearances for QPR since joining them from Burnley in August of 2013. Even after their 3-2 win over West Brom on Saturday, QPR is 16th in the table, just two points above the relegation zone.
That victory was powered by an Austin hat trick, which has raised his stock even more so. QPR have Austin under contract for two more years but that doesn’t mean anything in the high-stakes world of the English Premier League. If a team throws enough cash at them, QPR will be hard-pressed to turn it down. There are a number of teams that could use Austin outside of the current top four, and you could argue that West Ham wouldn’t mind inquiring about him too. Keep an eye on Austin over the holiday period as he’s likely to find a new home very shortly.
