Weekend review: Liverpool cut the gap to City, as top four race heats up

Manchester City's winning run ended at 12 games as Southampton held the runaway leaders to a 1-1 draw at St Mary's. City had enough chances to emerge victorious but this wasn't a vintage display from Pep Guardiola's side, despite the manager's puzzling insistence that it was one of their best performances of the campaign.

City's slip-up gave Liverpool the chance to close the gap at the top of the division to nine points. The Reds have now won their last eight trips to Selhurst Park after a 3-1 success on Sunday, but it was by no means a comfortable afternoon for Jurgen Klopp's men. Palace were excellent in the second half and could easily have levelled the scores before Fabinho's late penalty, with Liverpool unable to deal with balls played in behind their backline.

City are still heavy favourites to win the title; our traders rate their chances at 86%. But Liverpool have a game in hand and there's still one head-to-head meeting between the sides to come. Perhaps the title race isn't done and dusted after all?

Manchester United revive top four ambitions

It hasn't been plain sailing for Ralf Rangnick at Manchester United so far, but his team ended the weekend in fourth place after a last-gasp victory over West Ham United, who drop to fifth. Arsenal missed the chance to climb into the final Champions League spot with a 0-0 draw against Burnley, while Tottenham lost 2-0 to Chelsea.

Manchester United were therefore the big winners in the top-four race, which remains incredibly tough to predict. Tottenham are the narrow favourites, with our sportsbook giving them a 37% chance of qualifying for the Champions League, followed by United at 34% and Arsenal at 33%.

Big wins for Norwich and Newcastle in relegation fight

It was a bad weekend for Watford, the only member of the bottom four not to pick up a point. Burnley were resolute in their draw with Arsenal, while Norwich ran out 3-0 winners at Vicarage Road, and Newcastle edged out Leeds for only their second win of the season.

Norwich's victory over Watford means it's they who occupy 17th spot going into the Premier League's two-week pause. Yet the Canaries still have the worst attacking and defensive records in the division, which is why they're priced at just 1.29 to go down.

Watford are now the second favourites to succumb to the drop, with Claudio Ranieri reportedly on the brink of the sack. Watch out for Everton, too: the Toffees are in freefall and we give them a 16% chance of falling through the trap door.

One promotion spot up for grabs in the Championship?

It's fair to say Fulham's wobble is behind them. A run of four consecutive draws in November and December was followed by a 1-0 home loss to Sheffield United in their final game before Christmas. Since then, Marco Silva's side have won four matches on the bounce by an aggregate score of 22-6.

Saturday's 3-2 victory over Stoke City was their hardest fought for a while, as Fulham dug deep to get the job done. They're now eight points clear at the top of the table and our traders rate them as the 69% favourites to win the title.

Pleasingly for the neutral, as many as six teams could feasibly finish second. Two of the contenders, Blackburn and Middlesbrough, meet at Ewood Park on Monday night. Boro look like a different team under Chris Wilder and can be backed for promotion at the attractive price of 6.2.