Key Points of the Weekend

Thiago is Brentford's new talisman

After both Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa left Brentford in the summer, a lot of people will have been wondering who will step up as the Bees' new talisman because of how important both players were last season.

A lot of people had Brentford to be relegation contenders at the start of the season because of them losing those two players in particular as their goals were key to them having the season they had last season.

But thanks to Igor Thiago, they've kept themselves more than a good distance away from the relegation places as he has stepped up as the Bees' new talisman by scoring 11 goals with five in his last three games.

His latest two goals came in the Bees' 3-1 win over Burnley over the weekend with his first goal making him the quickest Brentford player to 10 Premier League goals in a season.

He barely played last season after picking up an ACL injury not long after he signed as a replacement for Ivan Toney. This season he has felt like a new signing and shown why the Bees brought him to the club by scoring the goals he scored.

He's the highest scoring Brazilian in Europe's top five leagues which puts him in pole position to start as Brazil's no.9 at the World Cup in the summer.

If he can keep up the form he's in, he has a very good chance of being that starting striker for Carlo Ancelotti's side.

Spurs lacking top quality players

Spurs' poor run of form continued over the weekend following another loss at home this time against Fulham which has left them 11th in the Premier League.

Thomas Frank got off to an ok start when he took over by winning 5 of his opening 9 league games in charge which had Spurs in and around the top four.

But three defeats from their four games since then have seen Spurs drop down the league and put the pressure on Frank.

Frank knew how big a job he was walking into when he took over at Spurs because of the size of the club and the high standards Spurs have compared to Brentford.

He's currently finding out how challenging managing a big club like Spurs is as he's had some criticism from the supporters for his tactics and the way Spurs have been playing.

His team have had a lot of injuries and especially in attacking areas as they've struggled to score goals and the players in that area haven't connected.

But when I look at his team I don't see any top quality players who can decide games and that is why Spurs could miss out on Champions League football this season.

I look back to their team under Mauricio Pochettino which had top quality players all over the pitch: Harry Kane, Heung Min Son, Christian Eriksen, Dele Alli, Hugo Lloris, Jan Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld to name a few.

Since Pochettino left I think their team has got worse year after year because they've lost key players who they haven't replaced and there has been no progress.

I know they won a trophy under Ange Postecoglou last season and they qualified fore the Champions League under Antonio Conte, but there has still been no progress and especially in the Premier League.

Could Chelsea be Arsenal's closest challengers?

It was only a few weeks ago when I asked if Chelsea were title contenders and a lot of people have been asking that more recently and especially over the last few days.

After watching them go toe-to-toe with Arsenal on Sunday and getting a deserved draw from that game, I'm now beginning to wonder if they could be Arsenal's closest challengers.

The blues may be 3rd in the Premier League and six points behind Arsenal, but with the current form they're in and the quality of performance they put in against Arsenal on Sunday, a lot of people will look at them and think that they could be the team that pushes Arsenal close.

Arsenal did drop points against both Liverpool and Man City earlier in the season, but I don't see either team challenging them because Liverpool are miles off it and City aren't exactly convincing at the moment as we saw against Leeds despite them getting the win.

Chelsea's performance against Arsenal will definitely give them confidence that they could challenge them for the title as they showed that they can get a result against anyone on their day.

But whether they'll keep up the current form they're in remains to be seen as they're still a young and inexperienced team and when they were talked about as possible title contenders this time last season, they ended up falling out of contention after Christmas.

A lack of experience was one of the reasons for that and I fear that it could be the same again this season because they're a young team, as I mentioned earlier, and they still lack leaders on the pitch to challenge for the title you need to have leaders on the pitch and I don't see many in that Chelsea team.

They have shown signs of an evolving team over the past week and a team that is maturing and they showed the latter against Barcelona on Tuesday.

But I think the jury is still out on them as to whether they could seriously be Arsenal's main competitors in the title race.