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⚽ Nottm Forest 3-0 Tottenham, West Ham 2-Aston Villa

⚽ Live scores | Table | Follow us on Bluesky | Mail Daniel It’s wild at the Stadium of Light, the crowd still in the ground and players lapping up the moment, recreating the team photo on the pitch that Newcastle took after beating them in the Cup the season before last. I can feel the reverberations of the buzz through my screen. Crystal Palace 0-3 Manchester City Nottingham Forest 3-0 Tottenham Hotspur Sunderland 1-0 Newcastle United West Ham United 2-3 Aston Villa Sunderland win the first league Tyne-Wear derby in nine years! They move up to seventh in the table, while Newcastle stay 12th. A massive result for City, the rest of the league on notice that they’re on the move. A crucial win for Forest, who end the Spurs revival and move up to 16th. Six wins on the spin for Unai Emery’s men. For now, at least, they’re in the title conversation. Isidor and Mukiele are still giving out, various bookings are issued, four I think – Guimaraes, Isidor, Willock and Miley. …which is cleared at the front post then, when the ball comes back, Roefs, comes to collect and goes down following a challenge from Willock which porovokes minor scuffling, Miley and Isidore getting to it, shoving and so on. Everything that no one, apart from everyone, wants to see. Ball into the box by Schar, it’s cleared to halfway, and Newcastle build again, every man bar Ramsdale in the Sunderland half. They win a corner…. At Sunderland, the home side look pretty solid at the back; they’ve four minutes of added time to survive. Haaland stutters, watching Henderson, who dives left, so he sweeps right. Huge result for City. Hughes crosses, City half-clear, and Savinho races through the middle from inside his own half, rounding Henderson, who brings him down. The keeper thinks it wasn’t a foul, I’m not sure how; he does well to avoid a red card because he wasn’t really near the ball. Newcastle are not replete with ideas. Without Joelinton, they don’t have the same physicality in midfield, an attribute that helps them compensate for a lack of guile; Sunderland have four minutes and change to survive. Join Rob Smyth for this one… “Just when Celtic fans thought it couldn’t get any worse, ” says Simon Mc Mahon, “St. Mirren have scored after 90 seconds to take the lead at Hampden in the Scottish League Cup final. .. ” At least they’ve got the tracksuits. Given the ball 25 yards from goal, Rogers advances and sweeps a fantastic finish across his body, over Areola, and into the roof! He can play some football, and once again Villa have come from behind to lead! Forest work the ball back to just outside the box, Sangare – who’s been brilliant today – marching on to it and hurling his entirety into an away swinger that tears past Vicario and into the net. Poor old Nick Woltemade is subbed – Wissa replaces him – and of course the home crowd offer him a fantastic reception. Palace will be gutted to be 2-0 down – Pino’s first-half miss, in particular, was a massive oversight. But they now look like a team that knows the jig is up. City are going back to within two points of league-leaders Arsenal. Sunderland are responding, a ball over the top brilliantly controlled by a leaping Isidor, who then leathers a shot – Sunderland’s first on target – that Ramsdale parries clear. Newcastle are dominating possession now but, as I type, Sunderland move down the right and work Hume into the box, but he can’t quite find a teammate. The tweaks Guardiola has made have worked well for Fill Phoden. The first time I saw him play, at age-group level, I messaged a mate and told them he was special, but progress is rarely linear so I’m not surprised he’s struggled at times. Now, though, he’s been given the responsibility to play centrally, and even at his worst, he’s a goal-threat – never mind now he’s hitting top form. City win the ball on halfway, out on the right, move it infield and Cherki battles through a challenge then offloads to Foden who, from 20 yards, drags a low shot across his body – one of those that looks saveable but isn’t – and it skips into the corner. He is back. Malen is on for Villa – he’s such a brilliant option to have – and almost immediately, he leathers a shot from the edge that Areola fists clear. Back to Kamada, the issue seems to be a hamstring one, which is not what Palace need given their workload and small squad. Newcastle are still struggling to create, or even to work a position from which creation might eventuate. Similarly, Spurs are not threatening at Forest, while Palace have lost Kamada, who’s hobbling off to be replaced by Hughes. “I’m watching a Spanish stream of the West Ham game, in Mexico of course, says Luke Woodward. “Rather than ‘sticking his leg out’, the commentator said Bowen ‘corrected’ the ball into the net, which I enjoyed very much. The South and Central American commentators tend to be so complimentary about the Premier League! I wonder if there are any other non-footballing verbs that can be used to otherwise describe goals in different ways? ” That’s lovely. Tom Williams wrote a book called Do You Speak Football? that looks at this kind of thing. I always liked the description of Paul Scholes “lending the ball out”. Anthony Gordon streaks away on the counter … so Reinildo flies through him and is booked. That’s a proper derby challenge, and seconds later, Gordon is replaced by Barnes, with Murphy and Willock on for Tonali and Elanga. “I’m not sure any of the great teams mentioned would swallow the injuries Arsenal have had to contend with this season and still look as good as we remember the 97-98 team being” muses Steve Mc Sween. Do you remember the injuries and suspensions they had to contend with? Alex Manninger, Christopher Wreh, Gilles Grimandi, Remi Garde and others all got a fair bit of game-time. This iteration have two quality players for every position. Something I’ve really enjoyed about Sunderland this season is the fans cheering every challenge and clearance. It translates to the players, who daren’t bottle a tackle or jib a chase, and what we see on the pitch reflects that. “I was just thinking this week that European football isn’t as stratified, quality-wise, as it was a few years ago, ” says Kári Tulinius. “The superclubs seemed to operate on another level, but now they’re back where everyone else is. Though they have more resources, they have to work for their wins. Even PSG, probably the standout side right now, struggle without Dembélé. During the superclub era, that sort of thing mattered only in clashes at the top, such was the disparity. So I think you’re right about Arsenal and City. ” Compare this City to the Toure-Silva-Aguero side; it’s almost a different sport. Sunderland are pushing for a second; Newcastle have offered almost nothing going forward. Tielemans crosses, Rogers traps, swivels, and drags a low finish across the keeper and into the corner. What a player he is. Hudson-Odoi works space down the left and either shoots or crosses, one of those nasty balls a keeper can’t move for until he knows if a touch is coming. Even so, though, Vicario gets his feet wrong and mistimes his desperate dive as the ball flies past him into the far side-netting. In fairness to Woltemade, someone at the near post, I’m not sure who, jumped with conviction, so he perhaps saw the ball late, but he could easily have left it. Mukiele hurls in a long throw and it’s headed clear, but when the ball is headed back to him, he sticks a really good ball into the middle, and though there’s no one near him, Woltemade panics and punishes what would be a brilliant attacking header in off the bar! Sunderland lead! We’re back under way at Forest, Palace and West Ham; the teams are out at Sunderland. Half-time email: “As an Arsenal fan, if (big if) they go on to win the league they will definitely be placed lower than the Invincibles and the 2001-02 double winners that were arguably even better, but frankly if they deliver a first title for more than two decades none of us will care that they’re a bit functional, ” says Will Vignoles. “I can’t help thinking part of it is just how strong the mid-table teams of the league are in comparison to even a decade ago, and it definitely feels like the pace and intensity of the league and the sheer amount of games being played for club and country might be having an impact as well – I don’t watch enough of other teams to know for certain but it feels like more and more sides have hit a wall in December in the last few seasons. ” I agree it won’t matter to the fans, and I’d also put my favourite Wenger side, the 97-98 double winners above these. I agree the middle-ranking clubs have better players than ever before, though wonder if they’re much cop as teams, but Arsenal have two physical players for every position, so correctly husbanded they should be outlasting most opponents – the changes they were able to make after an hour or so against Bayern turned that game, I thought. Half-time entertainment: No side in the league has scored fewer first-half goals than Sunderland, and they really struggled to break Newcastle down – which makes sense, as they lack a bit of guile and class up front, while their opponents are physical, well-drilled, and defending in numbers. Crystal Palace 0-1 Manchester City Nottingham Forest 1-0 Tottenham Hotspur Sunderland 0-0 Newcastle United West Ham United 2-1 Aston Villa “‘Relative to the best teams of the Premier League era, they’re miles off, in mine – is that controversial? ’” begins Ric Arthur, quoting me to myself. “Yes; and churlish. ” You think they’re anywhere near Wenger’s best teams, Guardiola’s two great teams, Mourhino’s Chelsea, Man United’s two Champions League-winning sides? I’d have to see the working; I haven’t a clue what it’d even be. Xhaka crosses to the back post and there’s Ballard, the man Sunderland would want it to be in that position, leaping … and he heads over. Back at Selhurst, Palace are back at City, Mateta foiled by Donnaruma coming out to paw away just as it looks like he’s made his way around the keeper. Burn can’t continue; he’s replaced by Fabian Schar. I was in Ibiza this summer and got chatting to a lad in the club who turned out to be one of Schar’s best mates – he told me he’d been to Wembley for the League Cup final and totally lost his mind, crying his eyes out at his boy’s success. We agreed his reaction made perfect sense. That’s what happens when you don’t take your chances and the opposition have a goal-monster in their ranks. A brilliant cross from Nunes swinging out, and Haaland leaps to head into the far side-netting. He’s got some potential, that lad. At the City Ground, a fine cross through the corridor has narrowly eluded Gibbs-White, then another low cross is flicked wide by the same player. He wants a corner and rightly so – the defender took the ball behind. Mukiele slides in and ploughs into Burn; he’s booked, but that looked to me like a 50-50, both players entitled to go for the ball in the knowledge that at least one of them was getting caught. “Arsenal are only a few weeks off comfortably thrashing Bayern Munich, ” says Adam Largs. “They’re 30 feet-deep in their depth chart and not playing their best, but it seems remarkably churlish to call them ‘miserable. ’ Relative to the best teams of the Premier League era, they’re miles off, in mine – is that controversial? As it happens, I think similar is so in Spain. The Tyne-Wear derby has been a little disappointing so far. We’ve had very little goalmouth action and Newcastle have barely made it out of their own half. Who’d have thought that, a year ago, they’d come to the Stadium of Light, to play a league fixture, as underdogs, then play like them? Vicario sends Gray a dreadful pass, Sangare snaps into the challenge, wins the ball, draws the keeper, squares, and Hudson-Odoi taps home. Sunderland win a free-kick not far outside their own box and Roefs comes to pump it towards the Newcastle box; it reminds me of Dave Beasant for Wimbledon. Diouf’s cross is cleared but only as far as Potts, who’s shinned volley from the edge reaches Bowen much nearer goal, and he sticks out a foot to deflect past Bizot. Tangentially, watching City having watched Arsenal last evening, I think we can say that no one is going to look back at this season’s eventual champions and rhapsodise them as a great side. The standard at the top of the table is miserable. Now Kamada sashays through midfield and sets Sarr away, but he can’t quite work a shooting angle and his attempted square pass doesn’t reach Mateta. Palace are knocking at the door. Palace are putting it on City, Pino wriggling past a pair of challenges inside the box but falling just as it’s time to shoot. At West Ham, Onana has just taken a header away from Konsa, sticking it over the bar – to his teammate’s consternation.