Arsenal ready to tighten grip on championship

New Year's Days are supposed to be about fresh starts, sobering up and facing reality. Yet football, perversely, could begin January with its debt-laden Premiership clubs spending vast quantities of money they mostly no longer have, loaning or buying players they cannot afford.

As this is a time for cold hard facts, we should begin by questioning the statement that in recent years Chelsea are a team who always raise their game for the season's big fixtures. This may be true for Manchester United, but the last Chelsea manager to win a Premiership match against Arsenal was Glenn Hoddle in 1995 and the last to beat them at Highbury was Bobby Campbell in March 1990.

Although Claudio Ranieri has constantly played down Chelsea's championship chances, should his side overcome recent history in north London this afternoon they would be ideally placed to launch a serious bid for the title, especially without the encumbrance of European football. However, after a Christmas period in which Ranieri has returned to old habits of tinkering with a settled side and picked up one point from two games, Chelsea may be equally likely to plunge downwards, especially with so much uncertainty surrounding the strikers, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Eidur Gudjohnsen.

Arsenal would appear to have nothing to prove, save for the fact that they go into 2003 top of the Premiership, garlanded with praise, but having hardly beaten a single team of note. Of the top seven, Arsenal have only managed to overcome Newcastle, while their forte has been hammering bad sides effortlessly. Victory this afternoon would be a massive statement of intent.

Before Newcastle's game with Tottenham last Sunday, their manager, Sir Bobby Robson, spent 20 minutes chatting to Hoddle, with both men coming to the conclusion that the Premiership this season shows no signs that it will ever settle down into a recognisable pattern. Robson believes Newcastle will have a significant say in where the title goes without being in a position to fulfil the "Geordie Nation's" dream of returning the championship to Tyneside for the first time since 1927.

"We will make it difficult for teams to win it. Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal have to come here," Robson said. "But until we can play away like we play at home – tough and durable – we won't win it." However, to everybody's surprise, they have embarked on a significant European campaign without losing form domestically, a feat beyond either Chelsea or Leeds. Victory against Liverpool at St James' Park tonight would mark a significant step forward in re-qualifying for the Champions' League.

For Liverpool the Champions' League is a necessity, not a luxury, and after two winless months nothing less than victory will do, although the absence of Michael Owen, who has terrorised Newcastle's defence to the extent of scoring 13 times in nine appearances, will hardly help.

After four points from a possible 27, Anfield remains uneasy as 2003 dawns. Gérard Houllier has spent £50m more than he has earned in his four years at Liverpool's helm and, although he is still in a position to repeat the memorable FA, Uefa and League Cup treble of 2001, this time it may not be enough to satisfy a set of supporters whose enormous reserves of loyalty and patience have been badly tested.

Manchester United enter the new year in the knowledge that these days Old Trafford is regarded much as the average hobbit would think of Mordor; a long, thankless-sounding journey to a forbidding fortress. Sunderland have had no kind of success there since 1968, and should they become United's 10th successive victims at Old Trafford, they would have to win every other game if their manager, Howard Wilkinson, is to achieve his survival target of 42 points.

His last game against United in September 1996 finished in a 4-0 defeat and the sack as Leeds manager. "I always remember him doing an interview on television right after the game," recalled the United manager Sir Alex Ferguson. "It was excruciating to watch. The questions kept coming and coming and it was all a bit unfair."

On Wearside, the questions show no sign of abating. Sunderland are one of four clubs staring relegation full in the face, although with a horrendous injury and fixture list Birmingham are giving it sideways glances, while Fulham appear in expensive, aimless freefall. Should they lose to West Bromwich, Jean Tigana, who has long since lost his chairman's confidence, can expect to greet the new year with the sack. Yesterday, the Fulham manager talked of a lack of luck and a surfeit of injuries, both essential qualities if a side is to be relegated. His predecessor but one, Kevin Keegan, thought the club too good to go down, although all the evidence is to the contrary.

Keegan can expect to enjoy January. Not only does the Manchester City manager intend to plunge through the transfer window with an £8m bid for Robbie Fowler, should he come away from Goodison Park with victory over Everton, his remarks that City would finish in the top six might might cease to be the standing joke of the red side of Manchester.

"It promises to be an exciting year and I'm sure that City fans wouldn't have it any other way," was the new year message from Keegan to the Maine Road faithful. "The Premiership is no place to start taking stock; we have to keep going forward, not looking back."