A big win and top trolling keeps Arsenal in Liverpool’s rear-view mirror

While their march towards the title has looked fairly serene and been declared by many as a foregone conclusion, Liverpool’s efforts to shake off Arsenal increasingly resemble those of a drunk pub patron trying to get rid of a rogue length of toilet paper that has become stuck to the sole of their shoe after a visit to the gents. Having gone to Bournemouth and taken care of business in a match their own manager suggested could have gone either way but for a couple of iffy decisions, a tight offside and some better finishing from the home side, Liverpool managed to put more distance between themselves and their nearest rivals, only to glance in the rear-view mirror last night to see the green and goofy face of Gunnersaurus looming large.

Given their six-point lead with a game in hand, the title still remains very much Liverpool’s to lose. However, it is worth noting that their extra game is against an Everton side that no longer look the pushovers they were while under the stewardship of a different inhabitant of the Jurassic era. What’s more, while the Merseyside derby is being contested in a spirit of blood and thunder under the Goodison Park lights, Arsenal’s players will be chillaxing during their now customary winter break in Dubai. If Liverpool’s bitter Merseyside rivals can do them a favour and Arsenal return from their holidays in a similar state of overpriced Salt Bae steak-fuelled serenity and reinvigoration to last year, Mikel Arteta and his men will certainly back themselves to take the title race right to the wire. Crucially, they still have a league match to play against Liverpool in May.

While Arsenal have tended to make heavy weather of quite a few of the wins that have kept them in the hunt thus far, for the final 35 minutes of their shellacking of Manchester City their players yomped about with all the giddy abandon of calves confined to a barn all winter who have just been released into a field. Having paid undue deference to their visitors for almost an hour after being gifted an early lead, it took Erling Haaland’s equaliser to spark them into life and realise that despite being champions, Pep Guardiola’s side are currently a complete shower. “I liked that the team showed a lot of personality and competitiveness,” gushed Mikel Arteta following his side’s demolition of City in a fixture that is becoming one of English football’s more enjoyable needle matches, due in no small part to the retaliatory and genuinely funny trolling of a certain Norwegian by Gabriel, Myles Lewis-Skelly and even the DJ in charge of the Emirates playlist.

While Arsenal’s players and fans communed in an atmosphere of genuine joviality and togetherness that you don’t always get at the Emirates, all concerned should keep their eye on the bigger prize. After all, this wasn’t the first, second, third, fourth, fifth or sixth league match City have lost this season – and it’s unlikely to be the last.

Join John Brewin at 8pm GMT for live updates on Chelsea 2-1 West Ham. And you can stay on top of all the men’s transfer deadline-day moves in Europe with our live blog through till 11.30pm here.

Humiliating? It’s not embarrassing. When you loan a player – and I don’t think it’s official – you expect him to play and to improve, so there is nothing humiliating there. I understand the question but I am just focused on my players, that’s all. When the window closes, I will be really focused on just our team and to improve our team” – Ruben Amorim, who watched Manchester United suffer their 11th defeat of the season, says he won’t mind at all if Marcus Rashford goes on a goalscoring spree at Aston Villa. Nope. Meanwhile, the word is that Rashford may have played his last game for his boyhood club, even if Amorim doesn’t stay in the top job at Old Trafford.

What are the odd of BOTH your teams being thrashed 7-0 on the same day? Having been born and raised in Cardiff and the heady days of Jimmy Scoular and European nights at Ninian Park, I now live in Sussex and am a season ticket holder at the Amex. Cue Nottingham Forest 7-0 Brighton, shortly followed by Leeds 7-0 Cardiff. It didn’t help that Wales had been thrashed in Paris the evening before. Three teams, null points, rugby scores all. Ho hum” – Peter Harris.

During the Villa game, I heard one of the commentators say that ‘Boubacar Kamara lacked concentration there’. Can’t argue with that. You always want your Kamara fully focused” – Darian Boyd.

A regular part of my job involves making powerpoint presentations, and the photo in Friday’s News, Bits and Bobs caught my eye in the worst possible way. What is that horrible font that some poor Uefa marketing intern was handed for Munich 25, and why not make ‘Road to’ the same font? The whole garish mess looks like something out of a Walt Disney nightmare. Which, now that I think about it and consider the minds behind the whole shebang, could well be the point” – Daniel Stauss.

Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’ the day is …Peter Harris. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, can be viewed here. 

Big Website’s bookshop has a host of great new tomes waiting to be added to your basket. There’s My Beautiful Sisters by Khalida Popal and David Squires’ latest brilliant collection of cartoons: Chaos in the Box. Get shopping!

8 January: “Mike is the right person in the board’s mind and the ownership’s mind to get us out of this fight. He knows the position we’re in, he knows how to get us out of it and changing the head coach now will not improve our chances of getting out of this fight” – Carlisle chief suit, Tom Piatak, backs Mike Williamson as the best man for the job at the rock-bottom League Two club.

3 February: “Head coach Mike Williamson has this morning been relieved of his duties and has left the club with immediate effect. Everyone at the club would like to thank Mike for his efforts during his time at the club” – it turns out sacking Williamson might improve bottom-of-the-Football-League Carlisle’s chances after all.

And in a further twist, it’s being reported that club suits have discussed a move to bring in … Steven Gerrard. Yep.

Spain’s former football chief Luis Rubiales has gone on trial in Madrid over the unsolicited kiss he planted on the World Cup winner Jenni Hermoso.

A six-year-old girl was hit in the face by a bottle thrown at Everton supporters from the Leicester section at Goodison Park.

Enzo Maresca has shrugged off Gary Neville’s claim that Pep Guardiola was playing Cole Palmer when he had a long, public conversation with the midfielder. “I don’t think Pep is playing a game, especially after the game is finished,” blathered the Chelsea boss. “Sometimes we finish the game and I go on the pitch and find an opposition player I know. I have a chat with him. If we say something we laugh”.

Having sold Palmer for £40m 18 months ago, Manchester City have waved £50m at Porto for Nico González and expect the midfielder to be wearing sky blue by the end of the day.

Gabriel Martinelli says Arsenal will go to Newcastle in Wednesday night’s Carabao Cup semi-final second leg looking to “score three, four, five”, although he failed to confirm whether he has ever caught a fish alive.

Tottenham are hoping Bayern Munich forward Mathys Tel can fire them up the table (no goals this season in 14 appearances for the German table-toppers) and are closing in on the loan signing of the 19-year-old. Marc Guéhi, though, isn’t close to a move to Spurs, with Palace turning down their initial offer.

Jordan Henderson was reportedly on the verge of a move to Monaco a few days ago, but has since decided to stay at Ajax. “I didn’t feel comfortable being captain of the team because of what was going on before the game and what was being said,” roared the 34-year-old. “I think 99% of people, if they knew the inside information, wouldn’t have played the game. Yet, people in this room have questioned my professionalism and me as a person and I think it’s bang out of order.”

And Gillingham have handed their goal-of-the-month award for January to Grimsby’s Doug Tharme. Honk. Yep, the Gills’ two goals last month were both OGs. Spare a though for Tranmere’s Jordan Turnbull, who missed out.

Count ’em! Ten Premier League talking points for your reading pleasure. And here’s our WSL review, too. My, we’re spoiling you.

Barney Ronay on Myles Lewis-Skelly, who was both brilliant and a bit of a scamp during Arsenal’s win over Manchester City.

West Ham manager Graham Potter is going back to Chelsea with a point to prove, writes Jacob Steinberg.

Isolated Pacific nation, The Marshall Islands (who have a vanishing kit), is trying to build its first football team amid a battle for survival against rising sea levels. Niall McVeigh has more.  

Catch up on every single men’s transfer (in Europe’s top five leagues) in our snazzy transfer interactive. Oh, the window may have already slammed shut but check out our women’s one, too.

And here’s The Rumour Mill, with plenty fluff that will likely be out of date by the time you read it.

Dennis Wise pins down Gianfranco Zola in Chelsea training back in 2000, although from the Italian’s face we’re not sure if he’s in on the joke. Wise and Zola were supposedly good pals, though, despite the latter often falling victim to the Englishman’s pranks. “I was reading my first English book, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, to help me learn the language. It took me so long because I had to keep stopping to look up the words,” Zola later remembered. “When I came to the end I was so happy although I had to say that this book ended in a strange way. A couple of months later I realised that [Wise] had just ripped out the last chapter of the book … I was so upset”.