Another Crazy Premier League Week Provides More Questions Than Answers

When Craig Gardner’s free-kick flashed into the Leicester City net on Tuesday night to earn West Bromwich Albion a point, the suspicion was that the dwindling most people have been expecting was about to begin.

Twenty-four hours later, it turned out that the 2-2 draw—disappointing as it seemed at the time—had increased Leicester’s lead at the top of the Premier League table. This is the season that logic forgot: Nothing makes sense any more.

Tottenham Hotspur, perhaps, will reflect that they got away with it. After six straight wins, they can be forgiven a blip, even if the way they were outmuscled and outplayed by West Ham United in the first half offers cause for concern, particularly as it may fit a wider pattern.

This will be Mauricio Pochettino’s sixth full season in charge of a club: in his last four, his side has suffered a decline in form over the final third of the campaign.

In the context of what followed, the nature of their victory over Swansea City last Sunday becomes ambiguous. What seemed at the time like a heroic fightback with two late goals could easily come to be seen as a scrambled win that presaged a slide should results go against them over the next couple of weeks. That makes Saturday’s north London derby even more crucial than it would have been anyway.

And however worried Spurs may be, they are at least in a better position than Arsenal.

Arsene Wenger’s side haven’t played well in the league since beating Manchester City just before Christmas. Nine points from their last eight games is a pitiful slide.

Perhaps they were a little unfortunate against Swansea: They had 18 attempts on goal to the away side’s 11; they hit the woodwork twice; there was arguably a foul in the build-up to Swansea’s opener and the second came after a bizarre ricochet.

Even worse, Laurent Koscielny and Petr Cech picked up injuries that will keep them out of the Tottenham game; that the goalkeeper strained his hamstring running back after going up for a corner added to the sense of preposterous misfortune/ineptitude that hung over the evening.

"

Wenger says Petr Cech won't play against THFC ... 'he has a muscle problem'. Koscielny also out of the derby

— Sam Wallace (@SamWallaceTel) March 2, 2016"

But this keeps on happening. There has been an inexplicable—if familiar—flatness to Arsenal this season.

In terms of equivalent results, they’re actually a point better off than last year, but it appears far worse because of the knowledge that with even reasonable form since Christmas they’d be clear at the top.

As it is, they’ve reverted to type, chugging along at around 1.9 points per game, just as they have for the past five years. There may have been an attempt to change the playing style, sitting deeper at times and looking to play more without the ball, but the mentality remains the same.

Yet even Arsenal, for all the fury of their fans, many of whom left before the final whistle, weren’t as bad as Manchester City, who were insipid in losing 3-0 at Liverpool.

City manager Manuel Pellegrini blamed a lack of freshness after playing 120 minutes in the Capital One Cup final on Sunday, an excuse that would hold more water if they hadn’t been playing the side they beat at Wembley.

Jon Super/Associated Press

It’s true that City have injury problems, but so too have Liverpool, and Jurgen Klopp’s insistence that there’s no point talking about tiredness seemed apt. City, offered an excuse, seized it; Liverpool, denied one, did not.

City are still only 10 points off Leicester, with a game in hand, so the title is certainly not beyond them, but at the same time, they have to look down as well as up.

Manchester United’s streaky victory over Watford lifted them level on points with City, having played a game more, but after four straight wins in all competitions, they are playing with the freedom that comes when everybody thought the season was over—only for a raft of injuries and an influx of 18-year-olds to re-energise everybody.

For City to finish behind United and be edged down to the UEFA Europa League would be bad enough in any circumstances, but never more so than the season before the arrival of Pep Guardiola—the very moment at which City were supposed to become the dominant side in the north-west of England.

But what of Leicester? The temptation is to see their draw against West Brom as evidence of them tightening up as the line approaches, a condition that used to be common among sides inexperienced in a title race in the days when there often were inexperienced contenders. They’ve taken just four points from their last three games and are under pressure.

That statistic, though, doesn’t tell anything like the full story. The game they won, against Norwich City, was arguably their poorest performance of the three.

At Arsenal, they played well but were undone by a red card and then Danny Welbeck’s late winner. Against West Brom on Tuesday, despite the absence of N’Golo Kante they were—as manager Claudio Ranieiri said—“fantastic” but ended up drawing 2-2 in a game they had much the better of.

The question now is how they react. Of Leicester’s next seven games, the toughest is probably the home game against West Ham.

Per BBC Sport, Ranieri has set his side a target of 79 points, which means they need 22 points from the remaining 10 games. They can afford two defeats and a draw, which sounds manageable now—they’ll probably go into each of those next seven games as favourites—but each slip will increase the pressure.

Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images

They will find others doing what Norwich did, packing men deep, denying Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez room to run into.

Others have frustrated Leicester in that way this season, notably Aston Villa and Bournemouth. One of the reasons for Leicester’s success, in fact, is precisely that opponents did not take them seriously, that they felt a need to take the game to opponents who were, after all, bottom of the league a year ago.

But it may be that the Foxes don’t need 79 points. Tottenham have been the most consistent side since the turn of the year, picking up 2.38 points per game (Chelsea are next best with 2.11 and Leicester third with 2.00).

Spurs are probably still the team most likely to topple Leicester, but they’re certainly not immune to fatigue or anxiety. And after a ridiculous week, it doesn’t feel entirely impossible that Manchester United could close the 10-point gap on the leaders.

Nonetheless, as all others falter, it increasingly feels as though all Leicester have to do to win the title is keep their heads.