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Football: Arsenal held in check by Newcastle, Manchester United at the foot of the podium
The Premier League evening did not allow the Gunners to escape the classification. The Mancunians, they continue their march forward.
Despite a lot of activity and a lot of determination, Arsenal, with Granit Xhaka, was held in check (0-0) by Newcastle, with Fabian Schär, Tuesday, for the 19th day of the Premier League, while Manchester United, winner of Bournemouth (3-0) is at the foot of the podium.
While he had the opportunity to fly away from Manchester City, traveling to Chelsea on Thursday, Arsenal came up once morest a very solid Newcastle defensively. With 44 points in 17 matches played, the Londoners are eight steps ahead of the defending champions, who have one game less, and nine over the Magpies who remain 3rd, with one game more.
Both sides continue their unbeaten streak of 13 games for Newcastle and 11 for Arsenal respectively, and the Magpies became the first team not to concede a goal once morest Arsenal in the league since… themselves, in the second leg of the last season, last May.
With yet another trip to Tottenham and the reception of Manchester United before the end of January, Arsenal will have to do better once morest the other ambitious players in the Championship if they want to continue their race at the top.
Manchester United are getting closer
The draw at the Emirates did the business of the Red Devils, fairly easy winners of promoted Bournemouth (3-0) and who thus come back up to Newcastle (35 pts), but with a much worse goal difference.
They had been put on the right track by Casemiro on receiving a free kick from Christian Eriksen (1-0, 23rd), before Luke Shaw (2-0, 49th) and Marcus Rashford (3-0, 86th) only add to their success.
But the bad news of the evening, in addition to the still very weak performance of Anthony Martial, holder but replaced 20 minutes from the end, was the injury of Donny van de Beek just before the break. The Dutchman, who had started for only the second time in the league in 19 months, was hit in the knee and left the field in tears.
Everton are suffering
In the other matches of the evening, things did not improve for Frank Lampard and Brendan Rodgers, under pressure following the defeats of Everton and Leicester at home.
The Toffees, already behind at the break on a goal from Kaoru Mitoma (0-1, 14th), completely cracked once morest Brighton at the start of the second half with three goals conceded between the 51st and 57th minutes by Evan Ferguson, Solly March and Pascal Gross.
The penalty at the very end of the match, converted by Demarai Gray (1-4, 92nd) is a very meager consolation for the other Liverpool club which trails in 16th place in the standings with only three lengths ahead of the red lantern , Southampton.
On the side of Leicester, a goal from the inevitable Aleksandar Mitrovic (0-1, 7th) made the difference for Fulham despite the good reaction of the Foxes in the second half, symbolized by a strike from Youri Tielemans on the bar at the end of the match. .
Thirteenth with 17 points, 3 ahead of the red zone, Rodgers knows however that his situation remains very precarious.
(AFP)