The 19th round of the championship has begun.

The difficult phase of the season continues for English clubs: in two weeks some will have to play less than 5 games. The championship leader has broken away from his pursuers, and the giants continue to drop points. Let’s talk about the development of the 19th round wrestling tournament Premier League.

Man City and Newcastle let Arsenal go

But the main problem in the leadership of the “Gunners” seemed to be their willingness to show long-term stability. The club has the youngest squad in the league, which initially seemed like a risk factor – Manchester City are in second place, but have enough experience to catch up. The third team in the league – ‘Newcastle’ – has yet to settle in the status of fighters for the top 3, so the ‘Citizens’ seemed to be the favorites in this trio.

Both, in fact, gave the Gunners another 2 points behind. The first matches after the resumption of the championship ended with vital victories for them: Arsenal defeated West Ham, City defeated Leeds, and Newcastle defeated Leicester. Difficulties began on New Year’s Eve: Pep Guardiola’s wards could not cope with Everton. The Toffees approached the 18th round in survival fighter status – they took 17th place, 1 point separated them from the relegation zone. As expected, the Blues set up a 5-3-2 defensive scheme with low laterals, gave up the initiative and the entire midfield, only scored 2 shots (City had 16). The Citizens tried to open up the defense all game, but ended up only scoring 1 point.

A similar situation happened in Newcastle with Leeds, but the amorphousness of one of the teams was not so acute. The teams separated with the score 0:0 – the Magpies were lucky that Tottenham also failed (0:2 with Aston Villa), but now they are very close to the top 3 Manchester United. The Mancunians are 2 points behind Newcastle.

Arsenal are already fulfilling the maximum task at this stage: with the young leaders, they demonstrate mature reliability and increase the lead. At the start of the 19th round, that’s 7 points.

Liverpool continues to go downhill

The Merseysiders really need a boost in the winter transfer window – the team keep dropping points and even coming in Champions League by the end of the season in the risk zone. And the team obviously needs the main European Cup – this is also noted by coach Jurgen Klopp:

We are talking about the top 7 this season. We all know now that Newcastle are a very strong contender. Only four teams will qualify for the Champions League. Now it appears there are two places left – Arsenal are having an exceptional season. “City” is “City”. Manchester United are clearly back, Tottenham are fighting hard, Chelsea are still here. Will be difficult. We need to have an exceptional second half of the season to qualify for the Champions League. This is our goal.

And the Reds entered the new year with two championship victories – an error occurred in the first game of the 19th round. Liverpool met Brentford, close to the European Cup zone. The Merseysiders had possession of the ball – 73 percent to 27. At the same time, the Reds most often kept the ball close to the last third: Fabinho, Alcantara and Elliott took full center. Even so, in terms of xG, Liverpool lagged behind their opponent – 1.59 to 1.91.

Jurgen Klopp’s wards in advance gave several clubs the opportunity to immediately hone the fight for European competition: Fulham, Chelsea and Brighton remain close. The first will play today for Leicester, who are active Premier League back hard – the defeat of the “Foxes” from “Newcastle” and “Liverpool”. Brighton face Everton and the Toffees have only recently made headlines with Man City. Chelsea have the most formidable rival: the “citizens” who want to catch up with Arsenal. The next round for the Merseysiders will be the most nervous.

Chelsea reaps the rewards of restructuring, Tottenham collapses

Apparently, we are seeing the transformation of the British big five, which have changed minimally in previous years. And Chelsea came out of it at least for the following year. Too many changes have fallen on the London team not to affect the team’s standings. After the change of ownership of the Blues, most of the management left (sports director Granovskaya, president Buck, executive director Lawrence), the rotation affected the selection department, medical and coaching staff.

New leadership connections are just being formed and this could affect transfer policy this winter. And the team is stormy. After a positive stretch in October, the Londoners closed the first part of the season badly (1 win in 5 games before world Cup-2022), and has now given points to one of the Premier League underdogs. Chelsea will meet Manchester City on January 5 and are unlikely to take even 3 points – January will be difficult for the Blues.

Tottenham have even made it into the top 3 up to a point. The decline began towards the end of October: Spurs lost to Newcastle, Manchester United and Liverpool. Newcastle, who trailed by 8 points after 11 rounds, quickly caught up with the Londoners and sent them into free fall. 2:2 with Brentford and 0:2 against Aston Villa moved Tottenham into fifth place, Liverpool and Brentford are very close to them. Do not complicate the situation: tomorrow Antonio Conte’s wards will have to play with Crystal Palace, and the Londoners should beat the obvious middle peasants.