'There is not another player as important to their team as Granit Xhaka' - Premier League talking points

It's 11-4 bar Arsenal and Manchester City in the Premier League title race as the Citizens sent out an ominous statement of their credentials in Sunday's 3-0 rout of reigning champions Liverpool. 

It's also getting tight at the bottom where just three points separate Newcastle in 14th and second-bottom Nottingham Forest after wins for the Tricky Trees, West Ham and Brentford.

Here’s what we learned from Gameweek 11:

And then there were two . . .

The weekend started with Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool stationed in the top three and ended with the champions eight points off the pace and only just inside the top half. 

The big winners were City, whose 3-0 rout of the Reds came 24 hours after Arsenal had conceded a last-gasp leveller at Sunderland, meaning the Gunners' six-point lead is down to four.

Given third-placed Chelsea are 33-1 to win the title, three times the price of Liverpool, bookmakers are unanimous in their assertion that the title will be fought out between Arsenal and City. 

And anyone who saw the way Pep Guardiola's side dismantled Liverpool at the Etihad could not fail to be impressed. Harking back to their period of dominance, there was a pace and verve about their wing play that was absent last season while City are always going to have a puncher's chance in any game with Erling Haaland in such devastating form. 

The ball is still in Arsenal's court but there will be more than a few nervous glances in the rearview mirror in north London.

Worrying times at Elland Road

Money talks in football and Leeds are beginning to find out the hard way. 

A promising start to life back in the big time is beginning to go south – and the buck stops with the Elland Road board. 

Leeds chairman Paraag Marathe talked of establishing the club as "one of the best in all of Europe" as they celebrated last season's Championship success on an open-top bus tour of the city. 

But a lack of investment up front over the summer is opening up such remarks to ridicule. Lukas Nmecha and injury-prone Dominic Calvert-Lewin arrived as free agents and have scored a grand sum of three goals between them and, Noah Okafor aside, the forward three who started Sunday's 3-1 defeat at Nottingham Forest is arguably a downgrade on the unit which plundered 95 goals and 100 points in the Championship.

Just as worrying, the competitiveness Leeds were showing in the other two thirds of the pitch is starting to waver too. 

With Aston Villa, City, Chelsea and Liverpool up next, Paddy Power's 15-8 quotes for relegation could look pretty generous come the second week of December. 

Magpies on the road to nowhere

"We've let everybody down". That was Eddie Howe's brutally honest assessment after Newcastle's latest miserable awayday at Brentford on Sunday,

It's hard to argue with Howe, who could only watch on as history repeated itself in the capital.

Just as they did at West Ham the previous Sunday, Newcastle took a first-half lead at the Gtech. And just as they did at the London Stadium, they then proceeded to concede three times in an abject defensive display. 

A 3-0 win at Leicester in April is the last time the Toon Army have taken to the road and seen their team trouser three points in a league game. 

There's too much quality in the Magpies' ranks for them to be drawn into a relegation battle, although that's definitely been said about other teams before now. But they are already seven points adrift of the top four, and to make matters worse it's arch rivals Sunderland who occupy fourth after 11 games.

Granit Xhaka has been an inspired signing for SunderlandCredit: Getty Images

Granit made of stone

Speaking of Sunderland; there cannot have been a better signing anywhere in Europe than Granit Xhaka.

It was a masterstroke from Regis Le Bris and the Black Cats hierarchy to bring in the Swiss enforcer and an even better decision to make him captain. 

Even the most ardent Mackem could not have foreseen the start they have made after eight years away from the top flight, and Xhaka has been at the front and centre of their remarkable rise. 

Committed, energetic and the glue that keeps it all together, Xhaka has been the elder statesman Sunderland's youthful squad badly needed to marshal them around the pitch, as his talismanic performances in last week's home draws against Everton and Arsenal, the Swiss ace's former club, testify.

Xhaka has won the most duels (67), made by far the most passes (592) and had almost 200 more touches (774) than any other Black Cats player this season, and, barring perhaps Haaland at City, there is not another player as important to their team.

Villa well and truly up and running

Aston Villa boss Unai Emery was, somewhat ludicrously, reported to be under pressure after the Villans' sluggish start to the season. 

The Spaniard is a class act and any Villa fan will tell you just as much. 

So it's no surprise that Emery has righted the ship and got Villa sailing with the wind in their sails. 

It's eight wins in ten for the West Midlanders, who took advantage of an uncharacteristically poor Bournemouth performance to swagger their way to a 4-0 success on Sunday. 

Relegation candidates Leeds and Wolves are next up for Villa, so it may not bee too long before we are talking Emery's side up as genuine top-four candidates. 

What do they say about class again?!

Read more:

Irons show they have the will to beat the drop 

Rock-solid Arsenal on course for title triumph while Manchester United and Crystal Palace should kick on 

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