Alexis Sanchez gets a kicking: 10 THINGS WE LEARNED. 

Manchester City's Premier League lead was cut at the weekend as they were held to a draw by Burnley, while neighbours United beat Huddersfield.

Arsenal hammered Everton and Liverpool drew with Tottenham in a controversial encounter, while at the bottom there were big wins for Southampton and Brighton.

Here Sportsmail looks at 10 things we learned from the round of games...

1. Jack Wilshere and Aaron Ramsey are clearly competing for one place in Arsenal’s midfield.

When Wilshere came off the bench for the last 15 minutes to replace hat-trick hero Ramsey in the 5-1 thrashing of Everton, it continued a trend that has seen them spend only 91 minutes on the same pitch in all competitions all season.

You have to go back to May 2015 for the last time both started a game – even allowing for Wilshere’s injury problems, that’s a remarkably long time.

2. Pep Guardiola has been grumbling about his Manchester City starts getting kicked, but life’s no picnic for Jose Mourinho’s players either.

Huddersfield set out to get in United’s faces and gave away an astonishing 19 free kicks in the course of 90 minutes – that’s a foul every four and a bit minutes.

New signing Alexis Sanchez took the biggest kicking, being fouled seven times. No player has been fouled more often in a single Premier League match.

3. Either Xherdan Shaqiri lost belief in Mark Hughes’s management or Paul Lambert has found a way to motivate the Swiss star, but either way his work rate is transformed.

After scoring with an early header for Stoke at Bournemouth, he put in a superbly energetic display and didn’t deserve to finish on the losing side.

He made 55 sprints. That’s 12 more than the last away game under Hughes in which he played 90 minutes, and nearly double the pathetic 28 he managed in his previous full away game at Crystal Palace back in November.

4. If Kevin de Bruyne tears England to pieces at the World Cup in the summer then nobody will be able to hide behind the excuse of a lack of a winter break.

The Belgian midfielder has borne the biggest workload of any Manchester City player so far this season, slogging his way through 36 of the club’s 39 games in all competitions.

He certainly puts a shift in too – nobody from either team ran further than his 7.7 miles in the 1-1 draw at Burnley.

5. Never mind Riyad Mahrez, his fellow midfield man Wilfred Ndidi is rapidly becoming Leicester’s most valuable player.

The 21-year-old Nigerian ticked every box in the 1-1 draw with Swansea, making most passes (73) and most accurate forward half passes (29).

He also won the ball back most often (17), fought most duels (15) and for good measure won every one of four tackles.

6. Crystal Palace won’t get away from relegation trouble until they find a more deadly touch in front of goal.

Despite battering Newcastle they had to be content with a Luka Milivojevic penalty as their only strike in the 1-1 draw.

It’s a damning indictment of the finishing from the likes of Christian Benteke and Wilfried Zaha that the Australian is now the club’s top scorer with six – four of them from the spot.

7. Welsh international Ben Davies continues to blossom for Spurs in the absence of his rival for the left back berth, Danny Rose.

Spurs saw the 24-year-old as their insurance policy against Manchester United’s pursuit of Rose when they handed him a new four year contract last summer, and it looks good business.

He gave another solid display in the 2-2 draw at Anfield – no other Tottenham player created as many opportunities for team mates to score.

8. Ambitious Championship leaders Wolves were wise last week when they did a deal – believed to be worth £12m – to convert Diogo Jota’s loan from Atletico Madrid into a permanent transfer this summer.

The 21-year-old Portuguese forward looks worth ever penny – he scored his 12th league goal of the season and 13th in all in the 3-0 win over Sheffield United.

9. Derek Fazackerley is no stranger to long spells as caretaker manager – he took charge of Blackburn for six months back in 1996 before Roy Hodgson was appointed. That might be just as well for Oxford as the 66-year-old remains in charge some two weeks after the sacking of Pep Clotet with no sign of a replacement lined up.

Fazackerley hasn’t ruled himself out of the running for the permanent job, and after marking his first league game in charge with a 3-2 win at Charlton, the club could do worse.

10. Rumours on the League Two circuit suggest that Graham Westley, sacked in acrimony by Newport when they were 12 points adrift last season, got the Barnet job by offering to work for nothing.

If that’s true, the moral for the struggling London club might be that you get what you pay for – a 3-1 defeat at Mansfield left The Bees 92nd in the Football League and seven points from safety.