Chelsea aim for Palmer fitness for Arsenal clash​​

Manchester United boss Rúben Amorim has admitted Pep Guardiola’s new contract at Manchester City is “a problem for everybody.”

Amorim has been tasked with bringing the Premier League title back to Old Trafford after succeeding Erik ten Hag as head coach.

The 39-year-old’s arrival has coincided with Guardiola’s decision to sign a new two-year contract, which will keep him at the Etihad Stadium until 2027.

Given his ambitions with United, Amorim said it is not ideal that Guardiola, who has won the league title in six of the last seven seasons, is sticking around.

“I think it’s a problem for everybody but we have so much to do we cannot focus on anybody,” Amorim said. “We just have to focus on improving our club and not focus on the other clubs. It’s amazing, if you can beat that team it’s a good sign but we are focused on Manchester United.”

Amorim, who will take charge of his first game against Ipswich on Sunday, is looking to become the first United manager to win the title since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013.

Still only two weeks into the job, he said he is “not yet had the opportunity” to meet Ferguson. Despite the Scot’s unbelievable success at the club, Amorim said he is not in Manchester “to copy” the legendary manager.

“It’s not to copy someone, so I have to be me,” he said. “We have to be very demanding. This is a club that has to win things, we have to show that to our players. But it’s a different time. I cannot be the same guy that Alex Ferguson was. It’s a different time and I need to have a different approach but I can also be demanding with that different approach.”

Amorim has been parachuted into the United job following a miserable start to the season under Ten Hag.

The former Sporting CP coach, who hinted that he would have preferred to stay in Portugal until the end of the season before moving on, admitted that trying to implement his methods halfway through the campaign will be tough.

“It’s so much harder to come to the team in the middle of the season because you have to get to know the players during the games,” Amorim said.

“You are talking about no national team periods to work with the players, it’s just games. It depends. If you are winning it’s a lot of fun, having a lot of games, trying to make changes tactically and winning games.

“But if you are losing you don’t have time in training to work out everything you want to work on. To improve a team, training is the most important aspect.

“Players can recover very fast but if you don’t do any exercise with that it’s really hard to do that in video or recovery training sessions. It’s really hard but we’ll try to find ways to cope with that.”

Mikel Arteta has hit back at anyone questioning Bukayo Saka‘s commitment to England by insisting he would “send an MRI scan” to prove the winger was injured during this month’s international break.

Saka was one of 10 withdrawals during England’s recent UEFA Nations League double header against Greece and Republic of Ireland, a situation which captain Harry Kane described as “disappointing” before suggesting that “it’s a tough period of the season and maybe that’s been taken advantage of a little bit.”

Saka was unable to complete Arsenal‘s 1-1 draw at Chelsea prior to the international break due to a thigh problem but capped a fine individual performance as he opened the scoring in Saturday’s 3-0 win over Nottingham Forest at Emirates Stadium.

After Thomas Partey and teenager Ethan Nwaneri — with his first Premier League goal — completed the scoring in a comfortable win, Arteta defended the contrast in Saka’s absence for England and fine form for Arsenal.

“Well, we can send an MRI scan, it’s very simple,” Arteta said. “That’s a communication that was very clear between the medical staff of Arsenal and the England national team.

“He hasn’t done anything, he was away and needed time to heal. He’s done one training session.”

Arsenal secured their first league win since Oct. 5 to generate some positive momentum ahead of a difficult week which continues with Tuesday’s Champions League trip to Sporting CP.

“I sensed a great energy in the last 48 hours,” Arteta said. “The way everybody came back, I sensed a great togetherness and desire to change the situation and what has been a different period for us with all the situations that we had to come across. And the team is there straight away from the beginning. It was a flow, it was a dominance, there was an enthusiasm about it. That is what I demanded.”

Pep Guardiola has suggested that if Liverpool beat Manchester City at Anfield next weekend his team could already be out of the Premier League title race.

City lost their fifth consecutive game in all competitions and third straight league game with a heavy 4-0 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday.

Guardiola’s side face Feyenoord in the Champions League on Tuesday before travelling to Anfield five days later.

Liverpool can move eight points clear if they beat Southampton on Sunday and Guardiola was asked after losing to Spurs whether an 11-point gap — if City lose to Arne Slot’s team — would be too much to overhaul even at this stage of the season.

“Yeah, it’s true,” he said. “We’re not thinking about winning or losing [the title], we are not in the situation to think about what is going to happen at the end of the season.

“If in the end we don’t win it’s because we don’t deserve it. We won it in the past because we deserved it.

“What we have to do now is [beat] Feyenoord. That is the most important thing — first for the qualification for the CL [Champions League] — and step by step the players will be better.”

Not only have City lost five consecutive games for the first time in 18 years, they’ve also conceded 14 goals during the run. Defensive injuries haven’t helped and there were more problems against Spurs when John Stones was forced off at half-time.

“We are a bit fragile right now, that is obvious,” Guardiola said.

“We have to break the results because the victories help us to be more positive and confident and we have to do it. But after eight years here I knew sooner or later we would drop. I never expected to lose three Premier League games in a row but we have been incredibly consistent again and again and again and now we cannot deny the reality that sometimes happens in football and life is here.”

Meanwhile, Tottenham are up to sixth after a blistering display of counter-attacking football. James Maddison scored twice on his 28th birthday before second half goals from Pedro Porro and substitute Brennan Johnson.

“You don’t come to a place like this expecting it is going to be as convincing as it was for us,” Spurs boss Ange Postecoglou said.

“City test you in every football way possible.

“After a really disappointing game last game [against Ipswich] we got back to our core beliefs. Credit to the lads, they were outstanding. We had to weather a storm and then grew into a game. I’m so pleased for the players. It furthers our progression.”