Manchester United are rooted in the Premier League relegation zone despite a dramatic late rally to rescue a 4-4 draw against Aston Villa.\n<\/p>\n
Arsenal have rarely hit top gear but a 1-0 win over Hull stretched their lead at the top to five points over surprise challengers Brighton, while slumping Manchester City suffered a shock loss at Nottingham Forest.\n<\/p>\n
Liverpool climbed into fourth with a 3-1 win at Crystal Palace that could spell the end of Pierre Sage\u2019s short reign in charge of the Eagles.\n<\/p>\n
AFP Sports looks at three talking points from the Premier League weekend:<\/p>\n
Crunch time for Carrick<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n A rollercoaster afternoon at Old Trafford did little to clarify Michael Carrick\u2019s future as United manager.\n<\/p>\n The Red Devils demonstrated their powers of recovery to twice come back from two goals down against Villa, as they also did to beat Roma 3-2 in the Champions League on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Yet an eight-game run without a Premier League win has plunged the 20-time English champions into the relegation zone for the first time at this stage of the season in 40 years.<\/p>\n Carrick was handed a stay of execution until the upcoming international break to turn things around.\n<\/p>\n The former United midfielder was bullish that he will still remain in charge when his side make the trip to face Liverpool in two weeks\u2019 time.\n<\/p>\n Now the focus turns on his employers to make the call on his future, with former Newcastle boss Eddie Howe and ex-Germany coach Julian Nagelsmann among the candidates to take over if Carrick is sacked.\n<\/p>\n Reality sinks in for City<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n Manchester City\u2019s third consecutive Premier League defeat dealt another blow to their title hopes \u2014 if they were even really in the race to begin with.\n<\/p>\n Enzo Maresca made a flawless start to the daunting task of succeeding Pep Guardiola.<\/p>\n The Italian became the first coach to win his first seven Premier League matches in charge of a new club.\n<\/p>\n Two of those victories came after City were found guilty on over 100 charges of breaking financial rules.\n<\/p>\n But the uncertainty surrounding City has bled into unconvincing performances on the pitch.\n<\/p>\n Maresca bemoaned his side\u2019s inability to match Forest\u2019s intensity at the City Ground.\n<\/p>\n Maintaining the motivation of his players to try and chase down Arsenal at the top of the table is a huge challenge for the City boss when even good results might count for little.\n<\/p>\n Unless City overturn the initial ruling on appeal, they are expected to be handed a severe points deduction that could even result in relegation from the English top-flight.\n<\/p>\n Sage on the chopping block<\/strong><\/p>\n Pierre Sage may win the unwanted race to become the first Premier League manager of the season to be sacked after Palace sank to the bottom of the table.\n<\/p>\n The Eagles inability to defend set-pieces has been a consistent scourge of Sage\u2019s short reign and cost his side again at Selhurst Park.\n<\/p>\n A positive first-half performance was undone when Alexis Mac Allister headed in Dominik Szoboszlai\u2019s free-kick and Liverpool never looked back.\n<\/p>\n In an ominous sign for the Frenchman, Palace chairman Steve Parish missed Thursday\u2019s Europa League draw against Hoffenheim after travelling to New York to meet with the club\u2019s owners.\n<\/p>\n A two-week international break offers the perfect chance for Palace to make a change, particularly with huge games against relegation rivals Coventry and Hull to come next.\n<\/p>\n AFP\n<\/p>\n Source: <\/p>\n Manchester United are rooted in the Premier League relegation zone despite a dramatic late rally to rescue a 4-4 draw against Aston Villa. Arsenal have rarely hit top gear but… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12746\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}