Welcome to The Briefing, where every Monday during this season The Athletic will discuss three of the biggest questions to arise from the weekend’s football.

This was the weekend when Manchester City blew Chelsea away, Liverpool picked up a crucial win as those around them dropped points, West Ham put four past Wolves and Crystal Palace came from behind to beat Newcastle.

Here we will ask if Arsenal’s collective neuroses means it’s to their advantage that their game of the season will be away from home, whether Tottenham really are heading for relegation and whether 17-year-old Rio Ngumoha showed he’s the real thing for Liverpool…

Is it better for Arsenal that their biggest game isn’t at home?

Title race extremely on, then.

If you don’t like hype about upcoming fixtures, we would recommend burrowing to the Earth’s core for the next week, because that’s the only way you’ll avoid the build-up to Arsenal’s colossal, massive, quite simply large trip to Manchester City next Sunday.

And with good reason. This isn’t quite a title decider in the sense that the winner will be champions, but it’s not far off. Everyone had been looking forward to this one before the events of this weekend, but it’s even bigger now.

It was perhaps ominous for Arsenal how, at half-time of their 3-0 win over Chelsea on Sunday, City seemingly just decided they were going to be brilliant, after a first half in which they had been relatively average. Rayan Cherki had one of those days where his remarkable best displayed itself in big neon lights, laying on two of the goals and at times toying with a dreadful Chelsea side.

It was familiar: this is the time of year that the great City sides of the past have become unstoppable machines, and there was a look of that on Sunday.

Arsenal were insipid in losing to Bournemouth on Saturday lunchtime, a shadow of their imposing best selves that we have seen for much of the season. The football isn’t, to say the least, always scintillating, but they’re usually much more solid and resolute than this. Mikel Arteta’s assessment was that they “did a lot of strange things”, but it was another game in which they became frustrated very quickly, which perhaps inhibited their performance. Confidence is through the floor; the collective neuroses, built up over 22 title-less years, were all over the faces of the players.

They weren’t the only ones: it was notable how soon the crowd at the Emirates appeared to lose patience with their team, and at one point in the first half Arteta seemed to gesture to some fans to calm down. There was a smattering of boos at full time, an extraordinary state of affairs for a team who were at that stage nine points clear at the top of the Premier League.

This is not to say that the fans are the biggest problem, but there seems to be a nervous energy around the Emirates which isn’t helping anyone. Which is why you wonder whether it’s actually better for them that next Sunday’s game is away, at the Etihad.

Sure, they will still have to improve on performances which have stagnated for a few weeks now, and Arteta will have to motivate, relax, whatever he can to get his team into the right frame of mind. He might also remind his team that they don’t have to win — City do, but a draw would be OK for Arsenal, leaving them six points clear with City having a game in hand.

But not having to deal with playing at home could help too. Perhaps it won’t make much of a difference, but Arsenal need something to change at the moment, and removing one layer of pressure might help them.

Is that it for Tottenham Hotspur?

The basic facts tell you that there is still everything to play for in the Premier League relegation race.

Three points separate four teams, with Tottenham currently occupying 18th place and Leeds yet to play this weekend. West Ham and Nottingham Forest are between those two, so with six more rounds to go, in theory, it’s shaping up to be a thoroughly entertaining scrap for survival.

But then you watch the games, and you start to feel much less optimistic about Tottenham’s chances of staying up.

All of the noises coming out of the club this week suggested that everyone is much happier now that Roberto De Zerbi is in charge, which may well be true, but that apparent mood lift wasn’t apparent in a 1-0 defeat to Sunderland that looked an awful lot like their previous defeats.

(George Wood/Getty Images)

Nordi Mukiele’s deflected goal was extremely lucky, but Tottenham’s performance was littered with wasted chances, poor decisions and a troubling lack of resilience to setbacks.

The difference between Tottenham and their rivals is that the other relegation candidates all have something to recommend them. Leeds have apparently forgotten how to score goals, but they have points on the board and are still to play Wolves and Burnley at home.

Forest aren’t exactly playing dazzling football but they’re chiselling out points, and Chris Wood’s return to fitness couldn’t have been timed better. West Ham just look like a good team again, not merely one in fine form: in a league table from when they beat Spurs on January 17, they would be fifth.

What can you say in favour of Tottenham?

That they have theoretically good players? Those players have put them in this position. That De Zerbi will make a difference? Well, yes, perhaps, but that’s hope currently based on no evidence. That they’re Tottenham and the idea of them being relegated feels absurd? Get used to it, because it could well be happening.

Is Rio Ngumoha the real thing?

It’s not necessarily a sign that everything else is going brilliantly when a 17-year-old is a team’s most threatening player, but in a season that has not been blessed with dazzling highs for Liverpool, they will take whatever positives are available.

Rio Ngumoha is extremely highly rated and has shown examples of why in flashes this season: a late winner against Newcastle here, a lively cameo off the bench there. But Saturday’s 2-0 win over Fulham was just his second start in the Premier League, and it also felt like his first proper ‘performance’.

His goal was brilliantly taken, but maybe more exciting was how he constructed the chance for himself, cutting in with those frantic feet from the left, jinking once to set the defence on their heels, then jinking again to create a little space and the correct angle for the shot. It was like he was testing the Fulham back line for weaknesses, looking for holes, before finding one and busting it wide open.

(Andy Buchanan / AFP via Getty Images)

It wasn’t an isolated incident either: he nearly did something very similar at least twice more in the game, and the way he systematically broke Fulham down suggested that there’s more than just skill and speed there, that there’s a keen football brain too, which isn’t a given for someone of his age. Put all that together and you’ve got something very exciting.

It also almost felt like Ngumoha’s goal served as a reminder for Mohamed Salah, who scored a mirror image version of his strike shortly afterwards. It was as if the great No 11 watched the kid on the other wing and said, “Oh yeah, I used to do that all the time.”

The debate is now whether he should start against Paris Saint-Germain in the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final on Tuesday. “He would take it in his stride,” Virgil van Dijk told the media, after he was asked how the youngster would deal with such a thing.

On this evidence, you can’t disagree.

Coming up

• There was a time when a game like Manchester United vs Leeds United wouldn’t have been allowed to happen at any time other than lunch on a Saturday, but maybe we’ve all grown up a bit now. That, or the vagaries of live TV coverage demand that games like this have to be on a Monday. Either way, it should be a lively one to round out the Premier League weekend.
• The Chaaaaaaaaaaaaampions. You’d think that Tuesday night’s ties in Europe’s shiniest competition are… maybe not quite over, but near enough. But you never know: Atletico Madrid and PSG both take 2-0 leads from their respective first legs, so Barcelona and Liverpool will be up against it… but you never know.
• There should be more juice in Wednesday’s games: Arsenal are 1-0 up over Sporting, so will be favourites to take that one, but Bayern vs Real Madrid is teed up nicely, the Germans 2-1 up going into the second leg in Bavaria.
• Thursday is Europa League day, and both English clubs have a chance: Aston Villa have more than that, given they beat Bologna 3-1 in the first leg of their quarter-final, but Nottingham Forest will be optimistic too, level with a Porto team who they’ve already beaten in the competition this season.
• It’s also Conference League time, and Crystal Palace look good for a semi-final spot, what with them taking a 3-0 lead into their second leg against Fiorentina.
• FYI for Friday night: Coventry are all-but promoted back to the Premier League, but could make it official if they manage just a point at Blackburn.