After a fascinating weekend of football, the Premiership title race is entering a new phase where the big teams know that one loss can mean that they are off of the pace for the whole of the season. Manchester United are well experienced with this type of pressure with players such as Ryan Gigg and Paul Scholes that have been playing in the Premiership for over 10 seasons. Chelsea are setting that pace currently and on paper probably have the strongest squad but you cannot predict what the next few months can bring in terms of form and in particular injuries to key players.
Liverpool and Arsenal must be the teams most aware of this 'must win' pressure. Both sides are desperate to win the Premiership and have really struggled in recent years to lead the pack with confidence for a prolonged period of the football season. Liverpool have been showing the right type of behaviours - consistency in their first eleven, winning away at Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge and (by far the most important) winning by narrow margins when not playing very well. However the Reds wobbled yesterday with a 2-1 loss at White Hart Lane against Tottenham Hotspur. Despite the Harry Redknapp factor, Liverpool dominated hitting the post twice and the bar once. Spurs 'keeper Gomes looked weak to say the least but Spurs managed to keep the game at 1-1 until the last minute where Pavlichenko snatched a massive win for Tottenham. Liverpool were unfortunate but cannot afford too many more defeats in the Premiership if they are mounting a serious bid to win the title.
Arsenal play the most attractive football in the Premiership in many people's eyes but in the last two games have only got one point. It started with a curnch North London Derby against Spurs where they conceded four - Gallas and Silvestre didn't convince as a robust central defensive partnership and then away at Stoke where the misery worsened when they lost 4-3. The two goals that Arsenal conceded were from Rory Delap throw-ins which have caused many Premiership teams problems were tough to defend but the Premiership winners will be able to deal with that type of set piece pressure. Wenger is now in a tricky position, where their issues at the back and deep midfield are really limiting their success. This may well be something that he has tried to confront with Mikael Silvestre who was signed in August 2008 on a 2 year deal from Manchester United. However the back four of he Arsenal team do have great talent it is apparent that not only are they missing a 'Tony Adams' style centre half but the type of cover that Partick Viera supplied for the Arsenal defenders is now missing. Denilson is a great player but is not neccessarily the best defensive midfielder.
"We tried hard to win but Stoke, at the moment, are very sharp physically," he said. "We looked a bit jaded because we have played a lot of games recently.
"At the moment we are suffering. I don't believe it is confidence; we put a lot in on Wednesday night and we play again in midweek in Europe.
"We have very bad injuries. We have Adebayor, Walcott and Sagna as well as one or two others who have knocks, but that's the kind of game we played here. When you are not as sharp, you are less agile and you can't get as quickly out of tackles."
He added: "We had lots of possession against a team who defended very well and was very well organised, but we were not sharp enough to to create chances with the possession we had."
