Premier League: Arsenal, Tottenham, Leicester mark new year with impressive wins

Harry Kane and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang were on target again as Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal bounced back from heavy weekend defeats to breath life into their premier League campaigns.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was on target again for the Gunners.

It appears Harry Kane and Mohamed Salah have some company as they vie for the second straight season to be top scorer in the Premier League.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was the Bundesliga’s leading marksman in his last full season in German football - with 31 goals for Borussia Dortmund in the 2016-17 campaign - and he is proving just as prolific in England after reaching 14 this season by scoring Arsenal’s fourth in a 4-1 win over Fulham.

The Gabon striker moved to Arsenal in January last year as Arsene Wenger’s final signing and has been an unqualified success with 23 league goals in barely 11 months.

He might need to keep up that rate of scoring to stay in contention for the Golden Boot.

Kane, the league’s leading scorer in 2015-16 and 2016-17, is tied with Aubameyang atop the charts after scoring the goal that set Tottenham on its way to a 3-0 win at Cardiff.

Harry Kane tries to get the better of Cardiff’s Harry Arter.

Kane’s Christmas haul

There’s something about playing over Christmas that brings the best out of Kane.

With his goal against Cardiff, he has scored in all four games over this festive period - having netted back-to-back hat tricks this time last year. He also scored three times in the two games after Christmas in 2016.

There was a touch of fortune about his third-minute goal at Cardiff City Stadium, with defender Sean Morrison’s clearance hitting Kane in the midriff just inside the six-yard box and the ball dribbling over the goal line.

Christian Eriksen and Son Heung-min added further goals for Spurs and there was no sign of the fatigue that appeared to mark their display in the 3-1 loss to Wolverhampton Wanderers last weekend.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was on target again for the Gunners.

Arsenal bounces back

With another big win over Fulham, Arsenal bounced back from its mauling at Anfield just three days earlier.

This was as convincing and one-sided as Arsenal’s 5-1 loss to Liverpool, which underlined the gulf that still exists between Unai Emery’s new-look team and the division’s genuine title contenders.

Granit Xhaka gave Arsenal a first-half lead that was added to by Alexandre Lacazette’s close-range finish 11 minutes after the break. Goals by Aaron Ramsey and Aubameyang wrapped up the win after Fulham substitute Aboubakar Kamara briefly made it 2-1.

It matched Fulham’s heaviest loss since Claudio Ranieri took charge in late November and kept the London team in next-to-last place.

Jamie Vardy celebrates his goal against Everton.

Puel’s position

Claude Puel was supposedly close to losing his job as Leicester manager heading into the festive period.

Coming out of it, his position should be as strong as it has ever been.

A 1-0 win over Everton, earned thanks to a 58th-minute goal by Jamie Vardy, sealed a third win in four matches for Leicester either side of Christmas. The other two victories were over Chelsea and Manchester City.

The Foxes are now in seventh place and leading the race to be the best of the rest behind the league’s so-called “Big Six” of Liverpool, Tottenham, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United.