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This week's update from F365:
Liverpool are not yet out of the title race. But they are standing on the edge of a precipice...
Winners
Chelsea
There is still nothing to excite at the Bridge but there is already an increase on the number of points won there by Chelsea against Big Four opponents last season. Last September's draw with Manchester United accounted for the only result Chelsea achieved against their elite rivals on home turf so this weekend's victory against Liverpool has removed one monkey off their back as well as putting them back on top.
A familiar style of functionality - which is another way of saying they lack a creative spark - still exists, however, and the only appreciable difference between last October's undressing to Liverpool and Sunday's win was a mistake by Javier Mascherano. Forget any notion that Carlo Ancelotti would provide a more attractive brand of play.
The Italian did at least give Deco a platform from which to pull the strings but once again he fell through the trap door as a luxury player of poor product. His time is surely coming to an end in both the team and at Stamford Bridge and if you're allowed any more alterations to your Fantasy League teams then the inclusion of Joe Cole is probably worth a punt - and likewise for Ancelotti as he does the real thing.
Arsenal
Who said he was out of form? Against Blackburn, Cesc Fabregas delivered the individual performance of the season so far, creating four of the goals scored, netting one himself and generally waving a masterclass wand at everything he did.
Arsenal's 4-3-3 formation plays to their captain's strengths more than any other player in the team because it allows him to roam forward from midfield without being required to act as the support forward that his relative lack of pace prevents him from being. It also helps that in Andrei Arshavin and Robin van Persie, the Gunners also possess two other potential match-winners to preoccupy their opponents. Gone are the days of two seasons ago when Arsenal could be stopped when Fabregas was stopped.
Portsmouth
The Pompey players are in danger of giving top-flight footballers a good name. Despite misfortune on the pitch and a missing fortune off it, they have, by all accounts, maintained their discipline and morale, and kept enough focus on their own business to win at Wolves. Finally, there are points, if not money, in the bank.
David Dunn
A pity his career has been blighted by injury because Dunn would not look out of place at a top-level club. At Blackburn, he is a cut above.
Geovanni
A scorer in five of the eight top-flight matches Hull have won since their promotion 18 months ago.
Burnley
A tenth consecutive home win for the Clarets.
Sunderland
Sunderland won't be the last club to suffer late disappointment at Old Trafford but they have shown the way to rattle the champions on their home turf: be aggressive, be physical and be unafraid. Easier said than done, of course, but, with Kenwyne Jones in unison with Darren Bent, Sunderland showed what is possible when teams do not sit back and wait for an onslaught.
Typically, sides that emerge from Old Trafford with a result are indebted to their goalkeeper. On Saturday night, Craig Gordon was summoned to make only a couple of handful of saves and was a contributing factor to their eventual undoing. His reluctance to leave his line and take command saw his defence fall ever deeper until the unfortunate Anton Ferdinand was standing on his six-yard line as he deflected in Patrice Evra's wayward shot.
Darren Bent
Bent has presumably been overlooked as an alternative to Emile Heskey in the latest England squad because he is a last-shoulder type of striker rather than a target man. However, his record against the league's elite is beginning to assume unignorable proportions: Having scored at the Emirates, Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge last season, he's netted in both of Sunderland's meetings with Big Four opponents this term.
Stoke City
They've only collected three points in the process but Stoke have also only lost on one of their four away trips this season.
Gary Cahill
A World Cup call-up is still the longest of long shots but Cahill's list of admirers is growing almost as rapidly as the number of English centre-halves falling by the wayside. Among those out of action this weekend were Rio Ferdinand, Ledley King and Jonathan Woodgate, not to mention Sol Campbell, while neither Joleon Lescott nor Matthew Upson have impressed this season. Cahill is a distant blip on the radar at Bolton but a January transfer could make a dramatic difference to the pecking order.
Chung-Yong Lee
The 21-year-old Korean looks a bargain at £2m.
Tottenham Hotspur
A ninth successive failure to win at the Reebok but a decent point for Spurs nonetheless. In previous seasons, they would have folded but this lot seem to be made of sterner stuff. The travelling band of Spurs fans, who journeyed north in impressive numbers considering their side's dismal track record in that particular corner of the country, will no doubt have particularly appreciated both of their goals being Bolton-esque.
Losers
Liverpool
It matters not that no side has won the title in 40 years after losing three of their first eight games because what matters more - especially now that three points are awarded for a win - is the number of games in which points are dropped.
Liverpool failed to win 13 games last season and, despite the depiction of a calamitous defeat being inflicted this weekend, will, on present form, drop points in 14 this term. True enough, a draw is worth one more point than a loss so they are heading for a shortfall compared to last season, but the general expectation is that the number of points required to win this year's title will be substantially reduced on United's last winning tally of 90.
The situation is far from either disastrous or irretrievable.
Yet what defeat at Stamford Bridge has signalled was the removal of any margin for error when the league season resumes in two weeks. Sandwiched between two critical Champions League ties against Lyon as well as a Carling Cup encounter at Arsenal, will be trips to Sunderland and Fulham along with a date with Manchester United on October 25.
There is no longer any available middle ground on the horizon. This time next month, Liverpool's season will either be back on track or in ruins.
Steven Gerrard
Starved of possession at Stamford Bridge, Gerrard may be missing Xabi Alonso even more than his team.
Manchester United
The convenient consequence, which may indeed have been its primary purpose, of Sir Alex Ferguson's belittlement of the rotund Alan Wiley has been to divert attention from the inadequacies of their performance on Saturday night against Sunderland and the spirit of their opponents. With the press pack willingly distracted by the venom of his rant and the opportunity for banner headlines, Ferguson has pulled off a crafty exercise in damage limitation. He'll have to pay, but he has saved his players the damning critiques their displays deserved.
Instead of a listing of Ben Foster's mistakes and the number of games Rio Ferdinand has missed through injury there is focus on Wiley's waistline. Instead of expressed bafflement of Ryan Giggs being rested ahead of a two-week international break and Danny Welbeck being played on the left, there is running commentary on the likely response from the FA. Instead of concern at early signs of fatigue from Wayne Rooney, there is condemnation of Ferguson's attack.
The United boss faces a fine, and possibly a touchline ban, but no doubt he'll consider such minor aggravation worth the price. The old boy could teach even a fox one or two salient things about cunning.
Rio Ferdinand
Never mind the matter of whether England can find room for Michael Owen in the England squad, the rather more important issue is whether England can afford to travel to South Africa next summer with Ferdinand pencilled in as John Terry's first-choice partner. Since April, Ferdinand has started back-to-back fixtures on just two occasions and missed more than half of United's Premier and Champions League encounters.
Mike Dean
Ferguson is bound to be charged by the FA for his rant at Wiley. Hopefully the governing body will also ask Mike Dean, the fourth official for Saturday night's game, for an account of the tirade that the United boss launched at him on at least two different occasions during the game and an explanation as to why he failed to alert Wiley or act upon it himself. Such an enquiry would carry extra resonance given that Dean did not hesitate to order Arsene Wenger into the stands in the 95th minute of Arsenal's encounter at Old Trafford in August for the heinous crime of kicking an empty water bottle.
Kieran Richardson
And it wasn't as if he wasn't warned either: Anton Ferdinand was also cautioned for kicking the ball away approximately ten minutes before Richardson invited Wiley to send him off. What price intelligence?
Sam Allardyce
Allardyce is undoubtedly right to assert that Blackburn should have been awarded a penalty by Peter Walton at the start of the second half during their mauling at Arsenal. Where his argument falls down is in the small print.
"There is no doubt in my mind that the position of the referee was excellent," Allardyce declared. Replays are inconclusive on this but it would appear Walton would have had to see through either Alex Song or Abou Diaby to have a clear view of the incident. Hardly excellent.
"The decision was the turning point and had a major effect on the course of this game," continued the Rovers boss. Nobody can know for certain but given that Blackburn had already led the match twice and Arsenal scored another three goals after Dunn's penalty appeal it is somewhat of a leap of indignation to depict the non-award as decisive to the game's outcome.
And to the inevitable claim of small-team victimisation: a reminder that two seasons ago, Blackburn were awarded a dubious penalty in a league game at the Emirates. The hosts went on to win 6-2 that day as well.
Abou Diabolical
No side has ever won the title consistently playing with ten men so it's just as well for Arsenal that Samir Nasri's recovery from a broken leg is progressing without complication. After a brief period of vague promise, Diaby has reverted to his former Diabolical self.
West Ham
From the sounds of the booing that greeted the final whistle of West Ham's draw with Fulham, patience is beginning to run thin with Gianfranco Zola at Upton Park. As remarked previously, he has bought himself no time with cautious tactics that often sees Carlton Cole deployed as a lone striker.
It is no bad thing for the league as a whole that two of the few remaining teams, Birmingham and West Ham, who persist in using a five-man midfield are the two teams to have been the biggest disappointments of the campaign to date.
Everton
Under pressure from Sunderland as well as Tottenham and Manchester City?
Paul Robinson
The Rovers keeper has conceded 47 goals in 16 games against Arsenal.
Pete Gill
