Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning , Nicky Bandini and Lars Sivertsen as Liverpool move two points clear the top of the Premier League

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On the podcast today; we start with Manchester City’s goalless draw with Arsenal – a game that had it not been between two title contenders would barely warrant a mention on the podcast let alone first billing. Despite that, Arsenal are probably the happier side - a clean sheet away at Manchester City doesn’t happen very often.

• Champions drew 0-0 with Gunners at Etihad Stadium on Sunday
• ‘They stopped us with fouls … If there’s no action it’s hard’

Manuel Akanji has accused Arsenal of using fouls to stop Manchester City in Sunday’s goalless draw and questioned why the referee, Anthony Taylor, did not penalise them more often.

The result at the Etihad leaves Liverpool two points ahead of Arsenal at the top of the league and third-placed City a further point back with nine matches remaining. Mikel Arteta’s side defended in a low block and with aggression. Asked if he felt they had often done so illegally, Akanji said: “Definitely. When we got through sometimes they stopped us with the fouls. If there’s no action to it [from the referee], it’s hard.”

• Championship updates from the 12.30pm BST kick-off
• Get in touch! You can email Barry with your thoughts

Enzo Maresca: “Yes, for sure,” said Leciester’s manager, upon being asked if his side could still finish in the automatic promotion places following their defeat at Ashton Gate. “As we said, it’s not good to lose games and drop points at this moment, but we need to be positive.

“We should be positive because, first of all, the points we have, and the performances are there, we just didn’t take the chances. One result can change everything, and hopefully it will come soon.”

Referee: Darren Bond

Referee’s assistants: Ian Hussin and Wade Smith

Fourth Official: James Bell

• Newcastle without 10 injured players for Everton fixture
• ‘Our spirit is still there and that’s the most important thing’

Eddie Howe has always believed coaches make their own luck but there are exceptions to every rule and Newcastle’s manager is adamant that ill fortune is responsible for his team’s extraordinary injury crisis.

As Howe’s captain, Jamaal Lascelles, prepares to undergo major knee surgery to repair a torn ACL this week, Newcastle’s manager is struggling to pick an XI to face Everton at St James’ Park on Tuesday night.

An Etihad stalemate, Kalvin Phillips suffers at St James’ and Palace look to have a new star in Adam Wharton

In their last two league games Manchester City have played their two title rivals and achieved the same result in wildly different styles. Unless Arsenal and City meet in the semi-finals of the Champions League – a rather less enticing prospect now – the next time any two of the current top three will face each other will be in Philadelphia on 31 July, when Liverpool and Arsenal are due to play a friendly. So the title will now be decided by results against the rest of the division and the good news for fans of fair fights is that the fixtures are remarkably balanced – taking the results of their opponents and adding any points deducted back on. The average current position of teams still to be faced by City is precisely 10, by Arsenal also 10, and by Liverpool 10.33. All have reasons to feel this is their year: Arsenal have the benefit of playing one more game at home and one fewer away; City the advantage of playing their harder fixtures at home, precisely where they would want them; and Liverpool get a two-point head start. Simon Burnton

Match report: Manchester City 0-0 Arsenal

Match report: Liverpool 2-1 Brighton

Match report: Brentford 1-1 Manchester United

Bayern Munich, Eintracht Frankfurt and Gladbach have fallen in third-tier club’s fairytale run to DFB-Pokal semi-final

“We’re calling it the Jahrhundertspiel ,” Kai Brünker says over the phone from Saarbrücken. “The game of the century. A big game, a derby, and it’s in a cup semi‑final. Everybody is speaking about it. You go to the bakery, people are speaking about it. You go into the city, you go for a walk, and people are saying: ‘You have to win against ’Slautern!’”
For the Saarbrücken coach, Rüdiger Ziehl, the reminder that this is no ordinary week comes with the constant pinging of his phone from friends and casual acquaintances pestering him for a ticket. On Tuesday night the third-division side from the very west of Germany, pinned right up against the French border, will write the next chapter in one of the most remarkable stories anywhere in European football this season.

The continent rejoiced in unison when Saarbrücken knocked out Bayern Munich in the second round of the DFB-Pokal in November. But pretty much nobody expected what happened next: a 2-0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt in the last 16, before Borussia Mönchengladbach were beaten by a 93rd-minute winner from Brünker this month.

Titles could be won and lost but Premier League fixture compilers have eased out what was once a staple of the season

You can easily lose a morning in the Guardian’s archives, trawling through all the times the church wanted English football banned on Easter’s holy days. My favourite story? The thunder and fury at the Liverpool Diocesan Conference in 1929, when a resolution asking why the Football Association “would not allow any man under its control to take part in any game on a Sunday, yet still sanctions matches on Good Friday”, was fiercely debated.

“Is it fitting,” the Rev JJR Armitage declaimed, “that at the very hour when we believe our Lord to have been enduring the agony of the cross, which led to the cry: ‘It is finished’, tens of thousands of men should be gathered in this Christian land, in the modern replicas of the ancient amphitheatre, to watch a few men kicking a leather football?”

• Managers clash at end of Continental League Cup final
• Eidevall:' ‘I don’t feel comfortable with that label’

The Chelsea manager, Emma Hayes, accused her counterpart Jonas Eidevall of “male aggression” on the touchline during Arsenal’s 1-0 Continential League Cup final win in extra time, while Eidevall replied it was “irresponsible” of her to use that label.

Hayes appeared to push Eidevall as they shook hands after the feisty tie, and she said she thought his behaviour towards Erin Cuthbert as she went to take a throw-in in the dying minutes of the game was “unacceptable”.

• Klopp’s side top table after Manchester City’s draw with Arsenal
• ‘Always who is first is favourites. It’s not in our hands’

Pep Guardiola said that Liverpool are now favourites for the Premier League title with nine matches left after Manchester City’s goalless draw with Arsenal at the Etihad Stadium.

Liverpool came from behind to beat Brighton 2-1 at Anfield earlier in the day to leave Jürgen Klopp’s side two points ahead of Arsenal and three of the champions. Each have only 27 points left to play for and Guardiola was asked if Liverpool are now in prime position.