Gus Poyet, Darren Bent, Nathanial Clyne and Emmanuel Adebayor were all in the thick of it this weekend. Photograph: PA / Reuters / Getty  A lot has been said about Chelsea's tactics - much of it by Brendan Rodgers - but there are a couple of things that seemed to have passed under the radar. The first is that José Mourinho does not always set up his team to play this drearily. He is not the bore extraordinaire that a lot of people would like to make out. Or maybe we imagined all those goal-fests for Real Madrid and the six-goal thrashing of Arsenal. What he does is devise system to win football matches and, if necessary, he will sacrifice aesthetic qualities when the opposition looks faster and more skilful. And that, plainly, was the risk when he was fielding his support cast against a Liverpool side, at Anfield, on a run of 11 straight wins, and with the volume turned high. Ugly? Yes. Hypocritical? Undoubtedly (just look at his comments when West Ham played this way at Stamford Bridge). Effective? Almost always. The other point is that Brendan Rodgers was wrong when he pointed out it was not difficult to coach that way. No other side in Europe defends as well in big matches as Chelsea, and it is not a fluke. It is a triumph of organisation, structure and competitive courage and if Chelsea can bring in a decent striker or two in the summer it should make them a formidable team next season. Defending is just as much a part of this sport as attacking and Liverpool would be in a more commanding position if they had found a better balance in this match. Daniel Taylor  • Match report: Chelsea 0-2 Liverpool• Rodgers accuses Mourinho of 'parking two buses'• Pictures: Tom Jenkins's images from Anfield• Andy Hunter: five things we learned from the game• Michael Cox: Rodgers learns a lesson  Manchester City had done their best to inject intrigue into the title race, even while Liverpool's had been perceived as the more romantic pursuit and Chelsea's has been laced with their manager's charisma, but they now appear on the verge of confirming what everyone had suspected all along. Theirs has always been the strongest squad, their team crammed with players bolstered by the experience of winning the title in 2012 and scarred by their inability to retain it last term. They had actually built last summer from a position of strength, despite last season's toils and a change in manager. Mourinho has consistently painted them as favourites and now, if they win their last three games, he will be proved right. Those points shed at Anfield and to Sunderland earlier this month, results which had given the other challengers such hope, may not count for anything if Yaya Touré rampages through the closing weeks of the campaign, David Silva returns to fitness and Sergio Agüero retains his, and Edin Dzeko maintains his recent scoring form. The title race has been intriguing, the charge led by Arsenal and Chelsea for long periods, and more recently Liverpool at a canter, but City, with their games in hand and menace on the shoulder, have just been waiting to pounce. Their time may now have come. Dominic Fifield  • Match report: Crystal Palace 0-2 Man City• Pellegrini: league title is in our hands now• James Riach: Touré is key as City take control  This reporter has serious reservations about Steve Bruce (and the feeling is most definitely mutual!) but as Sir Bobby Robson used to say football, and life, is all shades of grey. So immense credit where it's due. When, as the then Sunderland manager, Bruce paid Ipswich £8.1m for Wickham three years ago, everyone accepted it was a medium term investment. Yet, understandably, when the England Under-21 striker scored one Premier League goal in three years, the suspicion was that the current Hull City manager had paid radically over the odds while making a horribly expensive mistake. Five superbly taken, sometimes technically very difficult, goals – two against Cardiff, one at Chelsea and at two at Manchester City – in under two weeks have revised such opinions. Dramatically. As a former centre-half, Bruce probably knows what he's saying when he claims teams are only as good as their strikers. Gus Poyet – whose decision to recall him from Elland Road was more than inspired – puts it: "Connor has changed everything for us." Sometimes you really do – eventually – get what you pay for. And on that subject the recently hugely influential Emanuele Giaccherini will have proved worth the £8.7m Sunderland paid Juventus last summer should Sunderland complete Poyet's long prayed for, currently half completed, "miracle." Louise Taylor  • Poyet: Wickham 'has changed everything'• Match report: Sunderland 4-0 Cardiff  As gambles go, starting a 20-year-old defender who had just two appearances all season, both as an 89th-minute substitute, was a big one. This is especially true when you consider that Tomas Kalas would be facing the attacking abilities of Liverpool, the Premier League's top scorers and, bar Real Madrid, the top scorers in Europe's top five leagues. However the Czech international rose to the occasion and the demands of the game. He immediately formed a solid and effective partnership with Branislav Ivanovic and bar one miscued clearance, did not show any visible signs of nerves. He made two key interceptions on the left-hand side and successfully helped to clear a host of Liverpool attacks. A slightly stronger header moments before Gerrard's slip and he would have had a goal to go with his accomplished performance. Ian McCourt  • Barney Ronay: not anti-football from Mourinho  Marouane Fellaini missed Manchester United's cathartic 4-0 trouncing of Norwich City on Saturday evening. The £27.5m signing was not deemed useful enough even for a place among his seven reserves by Ryan Giggs. The interim manager spoke about Fellaini's misfortune in this but, truthfully, it was a humiliation, especially given the well-documented quality deficit in central midfield at the club. The question now is where does the Belgian go from here? There seems only one answer. Expect surprise if he does not make an exit from United before the summer window is closed on 1 September to complete a pretty miserable year since he was signed by the ill-fated David Moyes. Jamie Jackson  • Match report: Manchester United 4-0 Norwich City• Ferdinand considers foreign move• Jamie Jackson: Giggs brings back smiles• Van Gaal frontrunner for United job• Jamie Jackson: Van Gaal is a manager of no compromise  Jonjo Shelvey's long range strike for Swansea against Aston Villa was heralded by some critics as a goal of the season contender, but even Garry Monk, the Swans' interim manager, was not sure about that. So what sort of goal is most deserving of such an accolade – a solo effort from improbable distance or the combined play typical of Arsenal, Southampton and Swansea? We are discussing a team game, so a personal preference is for the inter-passing kind, involving cohesive skills from several players and a tap-in finish. But football is a broad church, with room for anything that pleases its audience, and Shelvey's 47-yarder certainly merits serious consideration. Joe Lovejoy  • Match report: Swansea 4-1 Aston Villa  Roy Hodgson might as well have a season-ticket at Southampton these days. The England manager was at St Mary's again on Saturday, casting his eye over Luke Shaw, Adam Lallana and Rickie Lambert, plus Everton's Leighton Baines and Ross Barkley, but it was the performance of Nathaniel Clyne that stood out the most. Southampton's right-back has had to battle the exciting Calum Chambers for a starting spot all season but he was excellent against the tricky but frustrating Gerard Deulofeu – diligent, committed, quick, strong in the tackle and always willing to get forward. Right-back is not a position where England are especially strong at the moment – could Clyne be the answer? Jacob Steinberg  • Match report: Southampton 2-0 Everton  It is not hard to figure out where Fulham have gone wrong this season but if the club do need more clues, then they could refer to what Hull have done right. Steve Bruce's shrewd management has been complemented by judicious backing from his chairman, Assem Allam. Hull invested wisely in the summer by bringing in the likes of Curtis Davies, Tom Huddlestone, Allen McGregor and (on loan) Jake Livermore, and did so again in January, signing Shane Long and Nikica Jelavic for a combined fee of around £13m while Fulham were splashing out £12m on Kostas Mitroglou. It was fitting that Long and Jelavic scored on Saturday while Mitroglou was again mysteriously absent, Hugo Rodallega squandered two fine chances and Darren Bent trod on the ball when put clean through. It is not just up front where Fulham lack quality, of course: their three managers have deployed 38 players this season in a variety of formations as they desperately seek 11 who can form a unit that can both attack and defend effectively for 90 minutes. With two games left, the search goes on. Paul Doyle  • Match report: Fulham 2-2 Hull City  West Bromwich Albion are at a crossroads – Pepe Mel doesn't know if he will be manager next season and, even if he is, he can count up only 13 of the current players whom he expects to still be here come August. So many are out of contract, on loan or set to be moved on, Mel would be looking for 10 new players – and that's if he gets Jeremy Peace's vote of confidence. After making progress season on season since they were relegated in 2009 – promotion, 11th, tenth then eighth – this is the first downturn new supporters have experienced. Mel has been unable to integrate his new methods in such a short time, with a relegation battle to deal with, so if they do stay up – as they now look set to – Peace will have to admit he made a mistake in the middle of this season if he seeks a fifth new manager in as many years.  Whoever starts next season in charge, Peace must prepare to stick with him for a good couple of seasons at least. Otherwise, instability will creep in and the Baggies will revert to becoming a yo-yo club. They still know how to play high-quality football and the major difference between last season and this is the goal power of Romelu Lukaku. But much of the squad's backbone is ageing. So Peace and the West Brom board should recognise this and loosen the purse strings sufficiently to give next season's manager a chance of sustainable progress. Peter Lansley  • Match report: West Brom 1-0 West Ham  Emmanuel Adebayor could yet face retrospective action for the sixth-minute incident that floored Ryan Shawcross in Tottenham's win at Stoke. Although the referee, Andre Marriner, took action by awarding Stoke a free-kick, changes made by the Football Association this season allow acts of violent conduct to be revisited whether or not the official witnessed them first-hand. Video evidence showed contact made between Adebayor's elbow and Shawcross's face but the pictures were fairly inconclusive and proving intent in such circumstances would be difficult.  This season's changes – which cover "acts of violent conduct that occur secondarily to a challenge for the ball" and "off-the-ball incidents where one or more match official did see the players coming together, but the match officials' view was such that none of them had the opportunity to make a decision on an act of misconduct that took place within that coming together" – saw the Fulham defender Sascha Riether banned for three matches for a stamp on Manchester United's Adnan Janujaz in November. Richard Gibson  • Match report: Stoke City 0-1 Tottenham
Guardian writers: Kalas unfazed at Anfield, Southampton have yet more talent of interest to Hodgson and where does Fellaini go from here?