Who doesn’t love a good momentum swing in a title race?
Well, Arsenal fans, presumably, but for the neutral it was a fascinating weekend in the Premier League after the Gunners lost at home to Bournemouth, and Manchester City defeated Chelsea to close the gap at the top to just six points, with City having a game in hand.
On top of that, the two challengers play each other at the Etihad Stadium next week, where a win for Pep Guardiola’s men would really put the cat among the proverbial pigeons. They are in ominous form, too, which so often happens at this time of year. Just how good are City in the latter stages of a campaign, though? We reveal all in this week’s SVQ.
Speaking of potent teams, Bayern Munich simply cannot stop scoring goals. They broke a Bundesliga record at the weekend, and we’ll look at how their goalscoring compares historically.
And with just 58 days to go until the World Cup kicks off, we answer an Ask Opta question about this summer’s tournament, while we also quiz you on some Premier League facts.
🪄 STAT - Man City Magic in Final 10
With a terrific opportunity to cut Arsenal’s lead after Mikel Arteta’s men lost 2-1 to Bournemouth on Saturday, you would have expected Manchester City’s nerves to be jangling in a tricky-looking game at Chelsea on Sunday.
Not a bit of it. They won 3-0 fairly comfortably at Stamford Bridge to move within six points of the Gunners, whom they welcome to the Etihad for a top-of-the-table clash next Sunday.
Things felt slightly tense with the game 0-0 at half-time, but goals in the second half from Nico O’Reilly, Marc Guéhi and Jérémy Doku sealed a valuable three points.
Man City have only lost one of their last 19 Premier League games (W12 D6) and are unbeaten in their last nine (W6 D3), which is their joint-longest streak of the campaign.
There have been plenty of bumps in the road for City this season, but in their last three games they’ve beaten Arsenal 2-0 in the EFL Cup final, thrashed Liverpool 4-0 in the FA Cup, and eased past Chelsea 3-0 in the Premier League. You would certainly forgive Gunners fans for sweating just a bit.
And that is because Man City are renowned for putting their foot on the accelerator at this time of the season.