1) Özil’s invisibility against City should concern Wenger



Arsenal beat Manchester City 2-1 a year ago on Wednesday, Mesut Özil setting up both his side’s goals. They were his 14th and 15th assists of the league season, and in all he created 21 league goals in 2015. “He sees things that nobody else does, you just have to make that run,” Theo Walcott said of the German after that game. “When you have special players on the pitch it makes our jobs so much easier. Not just offensively, but defensively as well. He put a shift in.” Özil has managed six league assists in 2016, and though many opinions will be voiced about Özil’s performance in this December’s game against City, nobody will accuse him of putting a shift in. His performance was rendered all the more concerning for coming just days after his hopeless defending led to the final goal as Arsenal let a lead turn to a 2-1 away defeat at Everton. There were times in the second half on Sunday when his lack of effort was shocking, suggestive of a player not just slightly out of form but either mentally or physically unfit for football. Perhaps negotiations over a mooted £200,000-a-week bumper contract extension should go on hold for a while. Simon Burnton

• Match report: Manchester City 2-1 Arsenal

2) Sané shows his talents for the future

It has taken time for Leroy Sané to make a statement at Manchester City but here, on his fourth Premier League start, he delivered in a manner that may have a significant impact on the title race. Pep Guardiola’s decision to pick the 20-year-old ahead of Nolito and Kelechi Iheanacho in the continued absence of Sergio Agüero seemed brave but, after a first half that proved tough going, he showed why City were so desperate to sign him for £37m from Schalke in the summer. He looked marginally offside when equalising but the finish for the equaliser was sharp and his run inside from the left was that of a clever, multifaceted forward who can be used in a number of different roles; an even better-timed burst later saw Petr Cech save sharply and City, by then, were running riot. Sané has explosive speed but has needed patience during his adaptation period in Manchester; more will doubtless be needed but the German is a player capable of deciding big games for years to come and this may be a performance that transforms his career. Nick Ames

• Silva’s creativity allows Pep Guardiola to focus on big picture



Manchester City’s Leroy Sané during his impressive second half against Arsenal. Photograph: Carl Recine/Reuters

3) Rotation turns Bournemouth match in Puel’s favour



As badly as Southampton began the 24th competitive meeting between these two sides, they finished the match far stronger than Bournemouth, who looked exactly like a team who had played three games in eight days. Southampton found their stride just as Bournemouth appeared to a hit a ceiling. Eddie Howe’s side faded while Claude Puel’s controversial rotation policy paid dividends. The omission of José Fonte, the Southampton captain, from the starting lineup was one of his six changes. After the team was announced an hour before kick-off Puel and Fonte could be seen in discussion on the pitch. Puel was later forced to again answer questions over Fonte, the Portuguese defender whose long-term future at St Mary’s looks increasingly doubtful. “It’s not possible for 11 players to play every game,” Puel said. “Since the beginning of the season we’ve played 26 official games and more for international players like José. He is 33 and it’s important he keeps all of his qualities for every game. Every three days, it is not possible.” Ben Fisher



• Match report: Bournemouth 1-3 Southampton

4) Opportunity finally knocks for Batshuayi at Chelsea

Michy Batshuayi has been waiting all season for this chance; he has effectively been on tenterhooks since 24 September when Diego Costa picked up a fourth booking, at Arsenal, to leave him one yellow from a ban. The Belgian is the only other senior striker in Antonio Conte’s squad, a £33.2m summer addition who has yet to start a league game. After Costa’s caution for a foul on Joe Ledley the 23-year-old will finally have that chance against Bournemouth. Chelsea are pinning huge hopes for the future on Batshuayi. “It’s not easy to understand and adapt to this league,” Conte said. “Look at Simone Zaza at West Ham, a good player who played with me in at Euro 2016 but who is having a lot of difficulty in England with how tough and physical the football is.” West Ham would actually like Batshuayi to replace Zaza in January, but Chelsea prefer the Belgian to continue his education with them and prove his pedigree on Boxing Day. Dominic Fifield



• Match report: Crystal Palace 0-1 Chelsea

5) Bradley deserves his time to put it right at Swansea

It was at least some form of justification when after appointing Bob Bradley to replace Francesco Guidolin in October, Swansea’s owners explained they “could not allow the club to drift any further”. All well and good, but the drift is becoming a nosedive and Bradley is the bookmakers’ overwhelming favourite to be the next Premier League manager sacked. So how do Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien proceed? It is reasonable – and not a comment on his nationality – to wonder whether Bradley, for all that he is a man of interesting and diverse experience, was really cut out for this kind of challenge; yet it also makes sense to let him form a side of his own after inheriting such an inadequate set of players that, as Middlesbrough proved on Saturday, includes a disastrously weak central defence. There are winnable home games with West Ham and Bournemouth to be played before the notoriously tricky January market opens. Fail to win either of these and it might take strong stomachs not to swing the axe again; but surely Kaplan and Levien owe Bradley, who they have put on a hiding to nothing, more of a chance than that? Nick Ames

• Match report: Middlesbrough 3-0 Swansea City

6) Diouf makes unreliable witness over Vardy’s tackle

Until Saturday the most impressive thing about Mame Biram Diouf’s season had been the way in which the striker has reinvented himself as a decent right wing‑back following the tactical shift carried out in recent weeks by Mark Hughes. But Diouf deserves some sort of acclaim for another feat: making the least convincing excuse in the history of a league in which Arsène Wenger has been working for 20 years. Asked what he made of Jamie Vardy’s tackle on him that led to the Leicester and forward being sent off and Diouf rolling around clutching a leg, the 29-year-old Senegalese replied: “I didn’t see it. I just saw somebody coming. He touched me but I don’t know, I didn’t see it.” Paul Doyle

• Match report: Stoke City 2-2 Leicester City

Mame Biram Diouf goes airborne after Jamie Vardy’s tackle. Photograph: Mike Egerton/PA

7) City may pay high price for Pickford’s excellence

Might deploying Adnan Januzaj in the hole be the way forward for Sunderland’s Manchester United loanee? It certainly looked that way as David Moyes switched to 4-2-3-1 with the hitherto underwhelming Januzaj behind Jermain Defoe and flanked by Fabio Borini and the influential Victor Anichebe. Januzaj enjoyed the best game of his Wearside secondment as Sunderland’s survival hopes were sustained and, once again, Jordan Pickford shone in goal. Excellent with hands and, significantly, feet, could Pickford end up as a key element of Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City revolution? With Sunderland £140m in debt, shouldering a £73m wage bill and in peril of contravening Premier League remuneration cap rules, Moyes, who is lacking nine injured senior players, needs to sell either Pickford or Lamine Koné (whose contract contains a £25m release clause) next month in order to introduce new faces. It is a harsh, stark choice. Louise Taylor

• Match report: Sunderland 1-0 Watford

8) Burnley may have to be cuter with referees

An hour after the full-time whistle and the Burnley manager, Sean Dyche, was still scratching his head. How had the Tottenham Hotspur substitute, Moussa Sissoko, not been sent off, Dyche wanted to know, for his high kick on Stephen Ward? Sissoko would salt the wound by setting up the winning goal for Danny Rose. It had come down, in Dyche’s opinion, to Ward’s lack of a reaction. He had not rolled around on the ground, just as the goalkeeper, Tom Heaton, had not done at West Ham United last Wednesday and Michael Keane had not done on the opening day after a shirt pull against Swansea City. Dyche does not want to see simulation from his players, as he put it, yet gamesmanship – in drawing the referee’s attention to an offence – might be another matter. It is a fine line and one that Dyche feels Burnley have been on the wrong side of too often this season. David Hytner

• Match report: Tottenham 2-1 Burnley

9) Pulis’s defensive plan shows his limitations

There were not many West Bromwich players who caught the eye on Saturday but one who did was Craig Dawson – unfortunately, it was not for the right reasons. Dawson was their “out-ball” during the first half as they looked to exploit Manchester United’s left channel, in particular the less‑than‑reliable Matteo Darmian. Dawson often found himself in space but repeatedly failed either to control the ball correctly or use it with any purpose. He looked like a man deployed out of position, which he was. Not for the first time Tony Pulis was using a centre-back at full-back which while offering West Brom defensive solidity, reduces effectiveness in attack. Classic Pulis, some might say, and it was telling that after the game he praised his players’ efforts without once commenting on the fact they barely created a chance. This, remember, was a side playing at home against opponents who at the start of the day were only one place and four points ahead of them. The lack of ambition was stark, and while Pulis deserves credit for not only keeping West Brom above the Premier League’s problem spots but also taking them into the top half of the table, it is legitimate to ask if he is doing enough – or indeed has what it requires – to take Albion as far as their potential allows. It’s something West Brom’s relative new owner, Guochuan Lai, may also be pondering. Sachin Nakrani

• Match report: West Bromwich Albion 0-2 Manchester United

• Zlatan Ibrahimovic: the older I get, the better I get, like red wine

10) Phelan hopes Hull not holed by Christmas curse

Hull City will be the Christmas No20 after slipping to the bottom of the Premier League with defeat at West Ham. Mike Phelan was philosophical about beating the curse that sees the club in last place on 25 December go on to be relegated. “It has been done before, it’s not as if [the curse] happens all the time,” he said after the match. That is true and two of the past three teams in Hull’s position have avoided the drop. But that becomes only three in the 24 years of the Premier League and the escapes managed recently by Sunderland and Leicester were great indeed. Notably they were driven by goals, and Hull are lacking up front. Their football was Premier League class on Saturday, but the finishing was not. Their strikers have delivered three goals between them all season. Dieumerci Mbokani was the man in post on Saturday and missed the game’s best opportunity. Phelan said of the Congolese: “I think he is ready to score a goal and when he does that will lift his whole game.” If that does not happen Phelan will have to hope he can get very lucky in the January market. Paul MacInnes

• Match report: West Ham United 1-0 Hull City