"Up until now we have got away with it," said Brendan Rodgers of Liverpool's careless defending following the 4-3 win over Swansea City. It was not the admission you would expect to hear from a manager of a team four points off the Premier League summit but 100% correct. Liverpool have flirted with danger several times this season but, once again, the outstanding finishing skills of Daniel Sturridge – 18 goals in 19 Premier League appearances now for the England international – the creativity of Luis Suárez and, against Swansea, Jordan Henderson's brace more than covered the cracks.  The search for a settled central defensive unit, however, goes on. Daniel Agger's recovery from injury was timely given the uncertain form of Kolo Touré and Aly Cissokho but he was unceremoniously withdrawn after struggling against Wilfried Bony's strength. Rodgers made no secret that was the reason for the Dane's substitution and, with Mamadou Sakho close to recovering from a hamstring strain, another change beckons. Andy Hunter  As against Barcelona in last week's 2-0 Champions League defeat, Manuel Pellegrini's band struggled to break down a Stoke City side that refused to allow them to play in their usual style. Gerardo Martino's men did this by dominating the ball and hustling hard when without it. Mark Hughes drilled into his Stoke charges the austere ploy of getting behind the ball and defending like Trojans. While this hardly makes the Welshman a genius tactician, for 70 minutes it frustrated City and, but for Yaya Touré's quick feet that fashioned the winner, Stoke might have left the Etihad Stadium with an impressive point.  As Hughes said: "We felt we had a good game-plan, we knew what we were going to attempt to do and we committed to it. You need to come here and have belief. We talked about having belief in what we were doing."  For Sunday's Capital One Cup final Gus Poyet might study the video of Saturday's game and tell his Sunderland side to soak up the City pressure for long passages and hope to nick the winner. The Sky Blues have previous for losing a Wembley showpiece this way: last year's FA Cup final ended in Ben Watson's 90th-minute header for Wigan Athletic breaking City's hearts. Jamie Jackson  Don't tell Jim White and his gang of standing-outside-a-football-stadium-while-loads-of-silly-children-gurn-behind-you Sky Sports presenters, but the last transfer window was incredibly dull, so much so that Nikica Jelavic's £6.5m move from Everton to Hull was perhaps one of the most interesting deals done. Certainly it was intriguing to see a striker that had impressed so quickly after moving to Goodison Park from Rangers almost exactly two years ago find himself with few options but join a club fighting against relegation. Jelavic, it seemed, was destined to go only one way in those early Everton days, and that was up.  From a Hull point of view, there was a definite sense of risk – was this a flash-in-the-pan player who simply couldn't cut it in the Premier League and, as such, was he really worth such a sizeable outlay? Well, six games into his Hull career and Jelavic is looking like an astute addition – having got his first goal for the club in the win at Sunderland earlier in the month, the Croatian scored two more in Saturday's rout at Cardiff, with the first showing he has developed a good understanding with Shane Long, the other striker Steve Bruce signed in January. The question now is, can Jelavic avoid a repeat of his Everton downfall and show long-term potency for his new club? Sachin Nakrani  Crystal Palace were dead and buried when Tony Pulis arrived in November but since then their resurgence has been remarkable, the former Stoke City manager winning 20 points and lifting his side to 15th place. They are two points above the bottom three, though, so they are hardly out of the woods yet. But how much will it take to stay up? "If we can get to 40 [points] I will be doing somersaults," Pulis . 40 always keeps you up or it has done for a long time and if you give me 40 now I will pack my bags and go on holiday." Palace need 14 more points - four wins and two draws from their final 12 matches - to reach the magic total. But with the bottom half so cluttered, will this be a season when 40 points won't be required? A couple more wins and maybe Pulis will be able to start packing the sun cream. Jacob Steinberg  Even Sam Allardyce could begin to admit that West Ham are almost out of the woods. The Hammers manager had previously insisted that his side were not clear of relegation danger yet, despite three wins in succession before Saturday's 3-1 victory over Southampton.  Now, West Ham have 31 points despite being engulfed in crisis only a month ago. They are seven above Sunderland in 18th and only a spectacular drop in form would see them dragged back into the mire. Mathematically and with difficult matches at the end of the campaign, there is still the outside possibility of this happening, but 12 points from 12 almost leave Allardyces and the Hammers home and dry. James Riach  Everton could do with Romelu Lukaku back, and quickly, though whether José Mourinho and Chelsea are as keen on the Belgian striker remains to be seen. Playing Galatasaray in the Champions League this week is bound to remind Chelsea supporters that Didier Drogba has never been satisfactorily replaced, and in terms of size and strength Lukaku seems to have at least the potential to provide a similar service. He is still unproven at the highest level, however, and should Mourinho wish to go out and buy a more clinical finisher in summer he will doubtless have the backing to do so. Yet after two seasons spent out on loan, Lukaku surely deserves a chance to impress in a top class team, and not as a back-up or occasional striker. Chelsea have enough of those already. Paul Wilson  Gus Poyet is a little bemused. To him, there is only one answer to the question that has come to tease Sunderland. Stay aboard the Premier League gravy-train or win the Capital One Cup? "Premier League survival is more important," Poyet said. "But don't tell the people in Sunderland. I thought it was just down to the manager to stay in the Premier League … apparently, it is more important for a manager to win a cup in Sunderland because it makes you more famous. I am learning."  When Poyet took over from Paolo Di Canio last October, the club were bottom of the division, with one point from seven games. They now sit one point below the relegation cut-off and a battle royale looms over their remaining 12 league matches. But Saturday's visit to Arsenal felt like a mere warm-up to Sunday's cup final against Manchester City. The Wembley date dominated the pre- and post-match discussion. Players were playing for their places in the final but, after the 4-1 drubbing, Poyet said that only Lee Cattermole, who was rested, was a certain starter. To Sunderland, the game is about the glory but there will only be disaster if they play like this. David Hytner  Before kick-off at Carrow Road, it would be interesting to know what odds were obtainable on Norwich manager Chris Hughton being in his job longer than Spurs' Tim Sherwood. Long, presumably, given Sherwood's excellent record since being appointed back in December, and the interview given by Norwich chief executive David McNally in which he readily admitted the club were actively looking for a possible successor.  But Norwich's 1-0 win means that come next August, it is now more likely Hughton will still be in his job than Sherwood. If Spurs don't finish fourth, as they probably won't, the revelation by Holland coach Louis Van Gaal that he has been sounded out about taking on the manager's role at White Hart Lane makes it look as though Sherwood's reign will certainly end in May. If Norwich stay up, meanwhile, the likelihood is Hughton will be given another chance to show he can do more than make the Canaries hard to beat. Richard Rae  Alan Pardew described Newcastle's pressure relieving 1-0 win against Aston Villa as "a strange game" while Paul Lambert said neither side deserved to win. In a sense both managers were right. If Villa were extremely unlucky to see Ashley Westwood, their key midfielder, limp off with a dead leg on the hour mark, Newcastle might have had a penalty for handball while Papiss Cissé missed a sitter and Loïc Rémy hit a post shortly before his stoppage time winner. Yet Villa too had their counter-attacking chances. Lambert's team controlled the first half and it took a splendid late second half defensive block on Mike Williamson's part to deny them a late goal. So if Rémy's 92nd minute decider in one way changed the landscape dramatically for Pardew, who goes from being a manager perceived as on the brink of the sack after a bad mid-winter blip to one in charge of a comfortably eighth placed team happy to have reached 40 points. In another sense it altered nothing. Newcastle still lack the creative imagination and technical edge Yohan Cabaye used to imbue them with and Pardew is still searching for a new playing philosophy. It is just that with fortune for once refraining from frowning in his direction, he almost certainly has a little longer to implement it now. Louise Taylor  Maarten Stekelenburg's career has eerily followed that of Edwin van der Sar. From Ajax, to spending two seasons in Italy, to Fulham. When Van der Sar signed for the London club in 2001, he talked of how the "nice, friendly atmosphere" had tempted him from Juventus. With Felix Magath now in charge and Fulham still bottom, the atmosphere for Stekelenburg is likely to be anything but friendly for the remainder of the season, especially after the Dutchman's error at West Brom, which denied the London club their first league win since 1st January. Stekelenburg's pedigree is not in question – the 31-year-old has earned over 50 caps for Holland, some of which came during their run to the World Cup final in 2010 – but having only played for teams competing at the top end of European leagues his entire career, how the Dutchman's temperament holds up in a relegation fight will go a long way to deciding if Fulham survive this season. A goalkeeper's job is a lonely one, and often the right mentality is as important as raw ability in these pressure games. Michael Butler
Guardian writers: Liverpool's strikeforce are carrying the load, Nikica Jelavic looks back to his best and do Manchester City have a plan B?