Wednesday 1 Arsenal stay five points clear but only after a nervous last few minutes in which Chelsea score twice before losing 3-2. “I like to win games like that when you’re tired,” says Arsène, making an excuse even though he doesn’t need to. “It was like watching the tide coming in,” says Howard Wilkinson as Man Utd score two late goals to beat Sunderland 2-1 having trailed for 75 minutes. Liverpool drop down to seventh after a tenth winless match, a 1-0 defeat at Newcastle, but Gérard sticks his chin out, sort of: “I don’t want to commit suicide before the end of the season.” Several fixtures are postponed due to bad weather, and one, Reading v Leicester, is called off at half-time due to a waterlogged pitch.
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Sunday 1 A Jerzy Dudek howler allows goal-machine Diego Forlan to score the first of his two as Man Utd win 2-1 at Anfield. “It seems that every time we make a mistake, we pay for it,” says a disgruntled Gérard. Yet more trouble for Tel as Leeds crash to their fifth successive league defeat at home, 2-1 against Charlton, who score twice in the last ten minutes. “When the players Terry has are fit, they should be too good to go down,” says Alan Curbishley encouragingly. David Batty is said to be considering legal action over comments allegedly made by Peter Ridsdale at the Leeds AGM to the effect that knee injuries have effectively ended his career. Everton’s run of wins comes to an end at Newcastle, who come from behind with two late goals, after Joseph Yobo is sent off early in the game. David Moyes has an unusual criticism to make of the officials: “Too many referees hide behind the laws
Having a bad season? Worried that things couldn't be much worse? Cheer yourself up with some schadenfreude as Graham Lightfoot looks back on Sheffield Wednesday's darkest hour
Sheffield Wednesday’s fall from grace over the last few years has been more plummet than decline. Ask any supporter under the age of 30 to name their worst ever season and our most recent campaigns in the Nationwide League would undoubtedly figure. Wednesdayites with the odd silver hair curling out from under their blue and white bobble hat will have memories of darker days. In the 1970s, for the first time that most of us could remember, we would have to grudgingly admit that Sheffield United were actually a better side than us.
Few Premiership chairmen are facing more questions than West Ham's Terence Brown, as Darron Kirkby explains
The only thing that West Ham fans can agree on at present is that the club is in crisis. Without a home win in the league this season – a run of 12 games including defeats by West Brom and Birmingham – and with only an FA Cup victory since October 22, becoming the first side in Premiership history to be bottom at Christmas and avoid relegation is looking an increasingly tall order.
Peter Kenyon's call to cut the number of professional teams to 40 is being met with fierce opposition
At the time of writing, York City could be less than a fortnight away from disappearing. The club is in administration, players aren’t being paid and property developers Persimmon, who hold shares in the company that owns the ground, Bootham Crescent Holdings, plan to build flats on the site.