When does a Premier League title wobble become cause for the panic button to be pressed? From an Arsenal perspective, it is when Manchester City start to appear in the rearview mirror, and that anxious moment has now arrived for Mikel Arteta and his players.

The Gunners are two points clear of Pep Guardiola’s City at the top of the table, with in-form Aston Villa one point further back in third place following their dramatic 2-1 win against Arsenal on Saturday.

With bottom-club Wolves due to visit the Emirates on Saturday, Arsenal would expect to open a five-point lead over City ahead of their difficult trip to fourth-placed Crystal Palace a day later, but this title race is not about testing the resolve of Guardiola’s team. It is about whether Arsenal can hold their nerve with City breathing down their necks.

Arsenal have plenty of ghosts to exorcise if they are to win their first title since Arsene Wenger’s 2003-04 “Invincibles” became the only team in Premier League history to go through a league campaign without suffering a defeat.

Only Liverpool and Manchester United (both 20) have won more league titles than Arsenal’s 13, but the Gunners have never gone so long between titles as their current wait, which will be 22 years by the end of this season. Arteta has also won just one major trophy — the 2019-20 FA Cup — in six years as Arsenal manager, so the 43-year-old is overdue when it comes to proving he has that crucial quality of being able to successfully guide a team through the stresses and strains of a title race.

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Those silverware droughts for both Arsenal and Arteta will provide psychological hurdles between now and May, but the biggest challenge facing the Gunners is that being posed by City.

When Arsenal sat atop the Premier League with a six-point lead after 12 games last month, it was one of those key pointers toward the likely winners of the title because no team has previously failed to win it after being six points clear at the same stage of the season.

But on the flipside, on the last three occasions in which Arsenal have been at the top after 12 games (albeit with a smaller lead), they have failed to win the title. And guess which team finished at the top on each occasion?

Yes, you’re right: Manchester City.

Since moving six points clear with a 4-1 home win against Tottenham Hotspur on Nov. 23, Arsenal have collected just four points from a possible nine, with a 1-1 draw at Chelsea and the weekend’s loss at Villa coming on either side of a routine 2-0 win against Brentford at the Emirates.

And in typical fashion, despite their frailties and inconsistencies this season, City have capitalized on Arsenal’s mini-wobble by recording three successive wins against Leeds United, Fulham and Sunderland. In the space of three games, City have reduced a seven-point gap to just two. And they are beginning to turn the screw just when Arsenal are hitting an injury crisis with key defenders William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhães and Cristhian Mosquera all ruled out.

To make matters worse for Arsenal, City striker Erling Haaland is running clear in the race for the Premier League’s Golden Boot award, with 15 goals in 15 games, and Guardiola will have money to spend again in January. Furthermore, no other coach possesses the experience of Guardiola when it comes to guiding a team to glory in the second half of the season.

Arteta has assembled Arsenal’s strongest squad since Wenger’s “Invincibles,” and they have been the best and most consistent team in the Premier League this season. They are still the title favorites and deservedly so, but they held the same status in 2022-23 and 2023-24, and each time, City reined them in to finish the season as champions. So why should this season be any different? Are there any clues that point to Arsenal finally going the distance?

Apart from the strength of their squad, which is certainly being tested defensively right now, there is no one stat that says that this will be Arsenal’s year, but there are some concerning ones.

For a start, they have failed to defeat any of their title rivals so far this season, losing at Liverpool and Villa, and being held to draws by City and Chelsea.

They have no player like Haaland in their side who can be relied upon to win tight games. While Haaland is scoring at the rate of a goal a game, no Arsenal player has scored more than four league goals. Four players (Eberechi Eze, Leandro Trossard, Bukayo Saka, Viktor Gyökeres) share their top-scorer spot with four apiece.

And while Arsenal boast the best defensive record in the league, conceding just nine goals, a third of those have been conceded in the past two away games. Injuries on defense are already beginning to have an effect.

City are certainly not perfect and are nowhere near as convincing as some of Guardiola’s greatest teams — the fact that they conceded four goals in a 5-4 win at Fulham last week underscores that reality — but they have the mindset and the proven record of turning it up when the pressure is on in the second half of the season.

Arsenal can hold on to the fact that none of their current title challengers are the complete package this season, and they may end up being the best by virtue of their strengths outweighing their weaknesses. But what they can’t escape is the knowledge that City have repeatedly answered the questions that continue to trouble them. And that could come back to haunt them.

In an era where explosive offense is key to success, “Sunday Night Football” was a defensive masterclass by both the Houston Texans and Kansas City Chiefs.

However, the Texans, the number one defense in the league, showcased why they’re top of the heap this season in a 20-10 victory on the road.

This game had massive playoff implications for both teams, as the Texans are now 8-5 after winning their fifth straight game, while the Chiefs fall below .500 at 6-7 with only four games remaining on the schedule.

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Kansas City – winners of three straight AFC championships – now sits 10th in the conference and faces just a 16% chance of reaching the postseason. 

It didn’t matter how hostile the environment was, or the fact that the Chiefs were treating this game like it was the playoffs. Houston’s defense delivered as it has week after week, and it started immediately in this one.

Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs’ offense ran only 14 total plays on their first three drives, all of which ended with punts. Then, Mahomes threw an interception on a pass intended for Juju Smith-Schuster, as Jalen Pitre jumped the route, deflected the pass and managed to find it in the air to secure the ball to his chest as he hit the ground.

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Meanwhile, C.J. Stroud and the Texans’ offense, a group that struggled in the playoffs at Arrowhead Stadium last year, did well in the eyes of pressure on their first few drives.

After securing the first points of the game with a field goal on their second drive, Stroud orchestrated a 90-yard march down the field for the game’s first touchdown — a nine-yard pass to rookie running back Woody Marks to make it a 10-0 game. A key play on that drive was a second-and-7 pass after escaping pressure, where Nico Collins got open for his quarterback and took his catch 53 yards to set up the Texans in great position in the red zone.

As the half ended 10-0, the Texans had to know that Mahomes and the Chiefs would come out firing in the third quarter. That doesn’t mean they were entirely prepared for it.

Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs carries the ball past Danielle Hunter #55 and Azeez Al-Shaair #0 of the Houston Texans during the third quarter at Arrowhead Stadium on Dec. 7, 2025 in Kansas City, Missouri. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

After forcing a three-and-out, Mahomes finally got something going, as the Chiefs went eight plays and 56 yards for their own touchdown. It was Kareem Hunt breaking a Danielle Hunter tackle behind the line on a fourth-and-1 play at the goal line. Hunt punched it in and it was a new ball game.

The Chiefs would tie it with a Harrison Butker 36-yard field goal, but the score would stay locked at 10-10 as both teams continued to make fantastic defensive efforts.

The turning point in this contest, though, came when the Chiefs decided to get greedy on fourth-and-1 from their own 31-yard line. Andy Reid has always trusted Mahomes to get the job done, but he wasn’t able to as his pass for Rashee Rice went incomplete.

Houston flipped momentum, and they made it work in their favor.

Woody Marks of the Houston Texans scores a receiving touchdown against the Kansas City Chiefs during the second quarter at Arrowhead Stadium on Dec. 7, 2025 in Kansas City, Missouri.  (David Eulitt/Getty Images)

Stroud made a tremendous play on third-and-3 as Chiefs star defensive lineman Chris Jones, who already sacked him in this game, was barreling down looking for another. Stroud worked to his right, eluding Jones and fired a strike to Jayden Higgins to extend the drive.

A few plays later, Dare Ogunbowale, who rarely sees the field other than special teams, scored from five yards out after Marks came out of the game after a big hit.

Now 17-10 in favor of Houston, Mahomes and the Chiefs were even more desperate as the clock continued to tick. But once again, they weren’t able to get the job done on fourth down as Rashee Rice dropped what looked like a good ball that would’ve kept the drive alive.

The game-sealing play was the Texans’ third interception on Mahomes, as he threw a ball behind his trusty tight end Travis Kelce. While it was a catchable pass, Kelce had trouble hauling it in, and it hung up too much as linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair snagged it to flip the field once again.

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Marks picked up a crucial first down on the following drive and the Texans walked the clock down until Ka’imi Fairbairn buried the final dagger, as his made field goal drained the last amount of hope for this game on the Chiefs’ end. 

In the box score, Mahomes had a brutal performance with 12-of-30 for 131 yards and his three picks. He was the team’s leading rusher on the ground, too, with 59 yards on seven carries.

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For the Texans, Stroud was 15-of-31 for 203 yards and one touchdown with Collins finishing four for 121 yards on his eight targets. Marks had 65 rushing yards on 24 carries as well.

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If, come April 6, the Big Ten has ended its quarter-century national championship drought, it still won’t change an uncomfortable fact: Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, no conference has done less with more in the NCAA tournament.

The Big Ten has averaged exactly eight NCAA tournament bids in each of the past five seasons. That’s 40 teams altogether — and all 40 have gone home with a loss. The record of this 18-team conference in the Big Dance is just six games over .500 (46-40), which should be impossible with a team seed average under six (5.97 to be exact).

So either five selection committees have underperformed when it counts, or the league itself has. And, well, we all know where the bodies are buried: No. 8 seed Loyola Chicago over 1-seed Illinois in 2021 (round of 32), No. 15 Saint Peter’s over 3-seed Purdue in 2022 (Sweet 16), No. 16 Fairleigh Dickinson over 1-seed Purdue in 2023 (round of 64). You get the idea.

But it began to change this past March. Four of eight Big Ten teams made the second weekend, with Michigan State reaching the Elite Eight. For a change, the conference played to its seed across the board.

We’ll see this March (and April?) whether that was a trend or a one-off. This Bracketologist is betting on the former.

The Big Ten begins conference play on Dec. 2.

Final Four contenders

Michigan Wolverines
Purdue Boilermakers
Michigan State Spartans
Illinois Fighting Illini

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Highlight: Kentucky falls to Michigan State in Champions Classic

The Wildcats shoot 35 percent from the field against the Spartans’ 50 percent as they struggle to keep up in the 83-66 loss in Madison Square Garden.

Michigan sits atop the first Bracketology of December and Purdue is No. 1 in both wire service polls. Both are legitimate national championship contenders. At least two others appear good enough to win four games and play into April.

Likely tournament teams

Indiana Hoosiers
USC Trojans
Nebraska Cornhuskers
Wisconsin Badgers
UCLA Bruins

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Bethune-Cookman Wildcats vs. Indiana Hoosiers: Game Highlights

Bethune-Cookman Wildcats vs. Indiana Hoosiers: Game Highlights

Indiana and Nebraska are the most interesting names in this group. The Hoosiers haven’t gotten it right in a long time, winning only one tournament game in the past decade. With the benefit of hindsight, three Sweet 16 teams under Tom Crean from 2012-2016 is looking pretty good. Meanwhile, the Cornhuskers remain the only power conference team to never win an NCAA tournament game. That has a real chance of changing in 2026.

Possible tournament teams

Ohio State Buckeyes
Northwestern Wildcats
Washington Huskies
Oregon Ducks
Maryland Terrapins

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Arrinten Page wins it for Northwestern as time expires

Arrinten Page wins it for Northwestern as time expires

If form holds, at least a couple from this group will be smiling on Selection Sunday. Ohio State fell just outside the previous group and should make it. Even if the Buckeyes are the only one from this group, the conference is going to send double-digit teams dancing for the first time.

Sleeper team

Iowa Hawkeyes

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Ole Miss Rebels vs. Iowa Hawkeyes: Game Highlights

Ole Miss Rebels vs. Iowa Hawkeyes: Game Highlights

It’s hard not to be fascinated by the Hawkeyes, who are transitioning from the scoring machines of the Fran McCaffery era to the sub-350 tempo of the Ben McCollum era. Iowa fans will take whatever results in deep runs, and so far, so good. The Hawkeyes open Big Ten play in the top 30 in both adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency, according to KenPom.

Long shots

Penn State Nittany Lions
Rutgers Scarlet Knights
Minnesota Golden Gophers

Rutgers might never again recruit the likes of Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey, and as such will always have an uphill climb to the NCAA tournament. Penn State and Minnesota can be good on a regular basis, but the sheer number of teams they need to pass in a league this deep is daunting.

Key games to watch

Illinois vs. Tennessee in Nashville (Saturday)
Michigan at Michigan State (Jan. 30)
Michigan at Purdue (Feb. 17)
Michigan vs. Duke in Washington, D.C. (Feb. 21)
Michigan State at Purdue (Feb. 26)