Five things we learned from the Premier League this weekend

1) We've seen this Arsenal season before. Haven't we?

Flowing football. Delicious team goals. Pundit-drooling-inducing displays. Trophy-challenging. On a host of fronts. Injuries to key players. More injuries to key players. Goalkeeping errors. Lots of them. From different keepers. Serious defensive deficiencies. At the wrong end of the disciplinary table. Trophy-challenging hopes on multiple fronts fading in a spectacularly short space of time ... Arsène Wenger could be forgiven for walking round in a Phil Connors-like stupor. But wait. Despite all that, despite the self-inflicted two points dropped at West Brom, despite the five-point deficit, Arsenal's title hopes still rest in their own hands, just as Manchester United's do. Somehow. Unfathomable as it sounds, win all nine games from here and the Gunners will be champions. Otherwise, and most probably, this painfully drawn-out Groundhog Day analogy won't seem so irrelevant. JD

2) And still ... half of the league is not safe

Each week throws up matches that look as though they will finally mould the bottom of the league into something resembling a Premier League table late in the season. And each week the table refuses to shift shape. Wigan and Wolves could very easily have been cut adrift at the bottom had they not got three points against Birmingham City and Aston Villa respectively, but thanks to Maynor Figueroa's injury-time strike at the DW Stadium and Wolves' continued ability to gain points in the most unlikely places, the trapdoor has been left open for any one of the eight teams above them. Even Newcastle United, humbled 4-0 by Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium, are not safe on 36 points in 11th place, and given that their next six games are against four teams beneath them and Chelsea and Liverpool away, the Magpies could very easily yo-yo. As for Villa, the atmosphere couldn't be much worse going into a relegation battle. Devoid of ideas, passion and support – and that's just the manager. Read ditto for the team. Gérard Houllier admitted he has never faced hostility like the one flung at him at Villa Park on Saturday. It was the kind of atmosphere present at Anfield during Wolves' 1-0 win against Liverpool in January. A defeat too far for Roy Hodgson. Only for Villa, there's no legend waiting in the wings, and precious little time. GR

3) Coleman cuts the mustard

Scan down the betting longlist for PFA Young Player of the Year and you will notice an omission. And a fairly glaring one at that: Everton's versatile right-sided starlet Seamus Coleman is nowhere to be found. As the Toffees have stealthily lifted themselves to eighth in the table, Coleman has also quietly been building his reputation, culminating in his all-round display in the win over Fulham, when he scored and produced an equally fine passing display. Sixty thousand of the best pounds Everton are likely to spend. JD

4) No cross to bear over Jarvis

Speaking of money well spent, Wolves parted with £600,000 (or 10 Seamus Colemans, or one-83rd of Fernando Torres) to sign Matt Jarvis, then League One player of the Year, from Gillingham in 2007 to bolster their flight from the Championship. Now the winger stands on the brink of becoming the first Wolves player since Steve Bull to be capped by England. Jarvis is no shock call-up from Fabio Capello, mind, merely recognition of an increasingly eye-grabbing season from the player in Mick McCarthy's increasingly eye-grabbing team, capped by his goal in the defeat of Aston Villa, their first in the fixture for 31 years. While not quite blessed with the same level of pace as, say, Theo Walcott, whose injury has helped cement his elevation, Jarvis is anything but a slouch, and his final ball is superior. Then again, he's had plenty of practice: no player in the Premier League has crossed with as much regularity this season (once every 8.5 minutes). Bull would have had a field day. JD

5) There is no karma in football

Only moments after Dirk Kuyt slotted home a penalty awarded for a foul yards outside Sunderland's penalty area at the Stadium of Light, there were Liverpool fans busy flooding the internet with their belief that it was karma for the "beach ball goal" last season. Rubbish. There's no bigger cliché in football than that which suggests decisions "even themselves out over the course of a season". Without wanting to sound all Richard Dawkins about this, there is no football God, only good luck and bad luck. It was Sunderland's bad luck that they lost two players to early injuries and conceded the penalty, not 'karma'. Also, remember which end that beach ball was thrown on from. GR