ANALYSE THIS: Settled team one of the keys to Leicester’s success

FOOTBALL – Thirty-five years ago Aston Villa famously, and surprisingly, won the league title with just 14 players. Three years earlier, Nottingham Forest won the league immediately after promotion using just 16 players. Arsenal’s 1989 title win, their first for 18 years, was achieved with just 17 starters. This season, Leicester City have been the great surprises of the Premier League and have also followed a similar pattern in their selections. In the first 22 matches of the season, Leicester manager Claudio Ranieri has picked just 17 players in his starting line-ups and the club could still equal the Premier League era record for fewest starting players in a season.

ANALYSE THIS: The Ageing Game

FOOTBALL – Manchester City opened its new £200 million academy in December 2014 but young talents have been given very little opportunity at City in recent seasons. A new piece of research by Infostrada Sports’ Head of Analysis Simon Gleave looks at how the age structures of teams in the Premier League have changed and why Manchester City are probably on the verge of needing a serious change in order to sustain their success of recent years.

ANALYSE THIS: Sixty-two days, seventeen matches

FOOTBALL – 61 days ago – today is day 62 – Tottenham Hotspur lined up in Turkey to play their final Europa League group match against Besiktas which they went on to lose 1-0. Two days earlier, Liverpool drew 1-1 with FC Basel in what was their final Champions League match of the season. This evening, the two clubs play each other and for both, it will be their 17^th match of the last nine weeks, the most played by any European club over that period.

FA Cup shocks top of Premier League

FOOTBALL – On Saturday, 24 January, five teams from the top half of the Premier League table lost their FA Cup tie, of which four played at home of which three were leading.

Euro Club Index: Chelsea would win title in 2 seasons out of every 3 from here

With 17 matches remaining in this season’s Premier League, the race to the title currently involves just two teams, one of which has around twice the chance of the other of ending the season as 2014/2015 Premier League champions. Five more clubs have a realistic chance of a top-4 spot whilst eight teams are currently involved in the relegation battle. This leaves just five – West Ham, Swansea City, Stoke City, Newcastle United and Everton – without much left to play for.

THE WAVE: Stoke City – Arsenal

FOOTBALL – Stoke City (red) defeated Arsenal (blue) 3-2 at home in the Premier League. The Gunners conceded their fastest goal ever in the Premier League after 19 seconds and were already trailing 3-0 at half time. In the second half, the fourth Stoke City goal was disallowed and Arsenal came back with two goals (68′ and 70′), but it was not enough to avoid defeat.

THE WAVE: Manchester United v Stoke City

FOOTBALL – Manchester United defeated Stoke City 2-1 after a narrow escape on Tuesday. The Wave shows Manchester United (red) had everything under control and Stoke’s (blue) goal came almost out of nothing and Stoke should have scored in the dying seconds, where a goal review system was needed to decide the outcome.

ANALYSE THIS: Euro Club Index – FC Barcelona back on top

FOOTBALL – The Madrid derby took all of the attention at the weekend with two of the top four Euro Club Index teams playing against one another but it is the other La Liga giants, FC Barcelona, who took advantage of the result in that match and returned to top spot in the ranking of Europe’s top flight clubs.

ANALYSE THIS: Euro Club Index – Chelsea and Liverpool on the rise

FOOTBALL – The two biggest matches in Europe this weekend involved London clubs playing the two Merseyside giants in the Premier League and after two away wins, the victors have both moved up a place in the Euro Club Index compared to last Tuesday. Every week at this time we will look at the changes in Euro Club Index rankings over the last seven days.

ANALYSE THIS: Why Dutch sharp shooting unlikely to continue

FOOTBALL – Group B rivals Chile and the Netherlands have been the most accurate of the 32 teams with their shooting at the 2014 World Cup.  The Dutch in particular have been genuine sharp shooters with 21 of their 27 shots on target. However, there is reason to believe that this is not sustainable for the remainder of the competition.