Liverpool head into the busy Christmas and New Year period when there are three Premier League matches played within a week still with a ten-point lead having not played at the weekend due to winning the FIFA World Cup against Flamingo 1-0 on Saturday. Manchester City did reduce their gap to the leaders back to eleven points after they won the battle of the chasing teams against Leicester City 3-1 on Saturday.
Fourth place Chelsea and fifth place Sheffield United maintained their league positions heading into the festive periods thanks to big 0-2 and 0-1 away wins against Spurs and Brighton respectively. Wolves moved up to sixth at the expense of Spurs and Manchester United thanks to a hard fought 1-2 win at Norwich and rock bottom Watford moved level with second bottom Canaries on twelve points thanks to an inspired 2-0 home win against Manchester United, which was their first win under new boss Nigel Pearson.
Southampton. recorded their biggest win of the season in their crunch relegation six-pointer against Aston Villa 1-3 at Villa Park, which moved them out of the relegation zone at the expense of Villa. Newcastle United and Burnley both recorded important wins against mid-table rivals Crystal Palace 1-0 and Bournemouth 0-1 respectively.The Festive domestic Premier League and EFL fixtures kick-off with a full set of fixtures on Boxing Day and the 27th, Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th and finally, Wednesday 1st and Thursday 2nd 2020.
Hope you all have a Merry Christmas and I’ll be back on Friday 27th with an update on the football and don’t forget to tune in on Monday 30th when I’ll have my 2020 Tennis season preview and a look ahead to the new ATP Cup tournament in Australia that kicks off on Friday 3rd 2020. The ATP Cup runs over two weeks up to the 12th, it replaces the Hopman Cup, Brisbane and Sydney hard court events, but the regular tournament at Doha runs from the 6th, as does Auckland and there’s a new Australian tournament played at Adelaide from the 12th, the week leading up tothe first Grand Slam of the season, the Australian Open in Melbourne.
