Advertisement

Premier League clockwatch live: Every goal from the 3pm games, featuring Manchester City and Chelsea

ben bloom
football - PA
football - PA

2:28PM

Pre-match reading

Our in-the-know football man Matt Law sent a story a couple of hours ago about Chelsea holding talks with AC Milan and Barcelona over a move for Gonzalo Higuain. If I had a pound for every time I wrote/read something about Higuain being linked with a move to the Premier League...

But this does appear to be a goer. Here's a snippet and you can read the whole thing here.

Chelsea are looking at a range of options to strengthen their attack in January, including Gonzalo Higuain and Nabil Fekir, as Alvaro Morata’s Stamford Bridge future looks increasingly bleak.

The club want a new striker and have held talks with AC Milan and Juventus about the possibility of taking over Higuain’s season-long loan from the Turin club, with Morata moving to the San Siro for the rest of the season.

Milan remain interested in midfielder Cesc Fabregas, who is also a target of Monaco, although the Italian club’s Financial Fair Play problems complicate matters.

Allowing Chelsea to take over Higuain’s loan would save Milan money, as Chelsea would have to pay the remaining £8million fee to Juve. Higuain also earns more than Morata’s £140,000-a-week Chelsea wages.

2:19PM

Arsenal on the up

Feel free to head on over to the Arsenal vs Burnley live blog where the hosts are 3-1 up in injury time. Just make sure you return here after.

2:13PM

Team news

Here are your teams for Manchester City vs Crystal Palace:

Man City: Ederson, Walker, Otamendi, Laporte, Delph,  Bernardo Silva, Stones, Gundogan, Sterling, Gabriel Jesus, Sane.  Subs: Danilo, Aguero, De Bruyne, Mahrez, Zinchenko, Foden,  Muric.

Crystal Palace: Guaita, Wan Bissaka, Tomkins, Sakho,  Van Aanholt, McArthur, Milivojevic, Meyer, Schlupp, Townsend,  Zaha. Subs: Speroni, Ward, Dann, Sorloth, Ayew, Puncheon,  Riedewald.

And here's Chelsea vs Leicester:

Chelsea: Arrizabalaga, Azpilicueta, Rudiger, Luiz, Alonso,  Kante, Jorginho, Kovacic, Pedro, Hazard, Willian. Subs:  Fabregas, Barkley, Loftus-Cheek, Caballero, Giroud, Zappacosta,  Cahill.

Leicester: Schmeichel, Ricardo Pereira, Morgan, Maguire,  Chilwell, Choudhury, Mendy, Ndidi, Albrighton, Vardy, Maddison.  Subs: Evans, Gray, Iheanacho, Ward, Okazaki, Iborra, Fuchs.

2:00PM

Good afternoon

Hello and welcome to this final Saturday afternoon before Christmas. The festive fixture pile-up means a feast of Saturday 3pm action back like it used to be in the glory/olden days before money turned football into a corporate machine/brought about more varied kick-off times.

There are six 3pm matches today:

  • Bournemouth vs Brighton

  • Chelsea vs Leicester

  • Huddersfield vs Southampton

  • Man City vs Crystal Palace

  • Newcastle vs Fulham

  • West Ham vs Watford

Manchester City go into today's match in the unusual position of knowing that not even victory will see them top the table at Christmas, with Liverpool's win against Wolves ensuring top spot for the Merseysiders, who have a four-point lead.

Jurgen Klopp this week said City have "no sign of weakness", adding that "only City can stop City" from retaining their title. Pep Guardiola disagrees:

Any team has strong points and weak points. Of course we have weaknesses and we are working on it.

Of course we have (weaknesses), but that's normal. These kind of comments have to be put in the perspective they must be.

City host Crystal Palace today in the first of five games over 16 days that could test the depth of Guardiola's squad and prompt the manager into further squad rotation. Here's what the City manager says:

In the last game against Leicester, John Stones played the holding midfield position for Fernandinho and was incredible in the way he played. That's important, to see the players in different positions so when we have problems we can give time.

We needed to do that. If not, then in February we will die. Until the end of January, it's incredible the amount of games we have.

Elsewhere, Claude Puel could well be done for if his Leicester side do not come away from Stamford Bridge with victory over Chelsea. At the bottom of the table, Huddersfield vs Southampton and Newcastle vs Fulham have a whiff of relegation six-pointers about them.

Plenty to get your teeth stuck into.