Premier League round up, April 3rd 2017

Crystal Palace stun Chelsea at the Bridge

Big Sam working his magic again?

Another round of Premier League results go in the books, and we have a title race on our hands entering the home-straight – who would’ve guessed that? There is no doubting where shock of the weekend in British football went as relegation-threatened Crystal Palace beat Chelsea 2-1 at Stamford Bridge.

Sam Allardyce’s side went into the clash without a chance, according to experts across the board, with their three-match winning run counting for nothing. The travelling support feared the worst too when Fabregas had the ball in the net inside five-minutes to put Chelsea 1-0 up. Their fears were short-lived however as Zaha struck an equaliser on nine-minutes and Benteke stunned the home crowd by slamming in a second moments later.

Chelsea did have much of the match to, at least, get an equaliser, but they couldn’t break down a miserly Eagles defence, and the second-half ended the same way as the first, with The Blues frustrated and Palace in dream land. That is now four win in-a-row, with the weekend success added to victory vs Middlesbrough, West Brom and Watford.

Big Sam, now with the whole England scandal firmly behind him, spoke to the press at full-time about the determination shown by his side to fight back. He thought the defence was outstanding, his goalkeeper was outstanding and his forward players could’ve scored more. He didn’t think his side would be written off so easily again, with the result making people sit up and take note.

Spurs beat Burnley to keep the pressure on

While Chelsea were dropping points, Spurs were heaping the pressure on with a hard-fought 2-0 win over Burnley, their fourth win in-a-row. Going to Turf Moor and winning is never easy, and plenty of big teams have tried and failed over the course of the season, but the Lilywhites did it thanks to goals from Dier and Heung-min. It took 66-minutes for the breakthrough to come, but once they got their noses in front there was no catching Spurs.

The winners are now a strong second in the league, three points better than Liverpool, who have played a game more, and just seven off leaders Chelsea. There’s some monster ties on the schedule, meaning no one at Stamford Bridge can take their eye off the ball if they are going to get over the line and win this crown.

Arsenal and City share the spoils

Game of the day on Sunday took place at the Emirates where a struggling Arsenal, led by manager Arsene Wenger who has been kicked about in the press recently, took on a confident Man City in a winning mood. Sane had The Citizens ahead early in the contest, and when Walcott hit back on 40-minutes, Aguero restored the visitor’s lead less than 90-seconds later. Wenger went from ecstatic to furious in the blink of an eye. It was amusing to the neutral to see a pensioner throw another stop, but perhaps not for Gooners.

They were able to get a share of the spoils out of the day, with Mustafi breaking even just after the restart. A thrilling match for spectators, and one which saw City dominate the stats, but fail to make it count. 14 shots at goal, only five on target will be a topic for conversation when they watch this back on Monday morning.

Betting check: Chelsea remain hot-favourites to win the league, with 1/8 the best you’ll get on The Blues at bet365, while Spurs make a little more appeal this morning at 9/1 with Betfair. Crystal Palace have eased to 10/1 to be relegated with Bet Victor.