London's big sides fell flat on Saturday and tactically a few things stood.
Newcastle and Chelsea tussle on one side
We can call Chelsea's recent form a blip. A slightly fortunate draw at Sunderland was followed by more dropped points against a North East side at Newcastle.
Watching the match unfold, one thing stood out for me. A lot of the game seemed to be played on the left hand side of the pitch, especially from a Newcastle perspective.
If we take a look at the first half, Willian delivered two tantalising balls, with one coming when he collected a Cesc Fabregas pass and darted in between left-back Paul Dummett (who was quite tucked in) and left-winger Sammy Ameobi.
But by that token, I kept noticing the Magpies' most advanced midfielder Moussa Sissoko on the left flank more often than I expected him to be, given his central role, which contributed to tilting the game towards that side of the pitch.
Indeed, Squawka stats show bear that out with 24 per cent of his involvement coming from the left, as opposed to about 11 per cent on the right.
Both Newcastle goals also originated from left-to-right movements with the balls coming from the left side onto a central runner.
Wenger didn't see it coming...even though he's seen it countless times
Stoke have evolved under Mark Hughes. But they were right to go old-school by playing Peter Crouch up front with Bojan given a free role against Arsenal in the Potter's 3 - 2 win.
The Gunners know what to expect at the Britannia, but literally from the very first minute, they proved unable to stop crosses into the box.
Interestingly, they were punctured most often down their left side in the early onslaught, where the two crossed assists for Stoke's first couple of goals came from.
Indeed all but two of Stoke's crosses in the first 35 minutes came from that side and Arsenal's back four did not show leadership or organisation for Crouch's goal, while you wonder who was meant to track Bojan when he raced into the box to put a finishing touch to a Walter's cross.
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