LONDON -- In the Premier Leagues top-four shuffle, its Arsenal leading the way again -- for now. cheap jerseys . After slipping from the summit during the week, the Gunners overcame struggling Crystal Palace 2-0 on Sunday thanks to Alex Oxlade-Chamberlains second-half brace. Now the focus turns to Monday night when Manchester City, which is two points behind Arsenal, hosts Chelsea, which is three points further back in third. "I will watch that game with interest because its two competitors against us and its always interesting to see how they behave," Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said. "We gained some points through some other opponents like Liverpool and Man United over this weekend, and I think we know that our results at the Emirates will be massively important until the end." Liverpool remained in fourth place, but its 1-1 draw at West Bromwich Albion was a missed opportunity to strengthen its pursuit of Champions League qualification. Having led through Daniel Sturridge, Liverpool defender Kolo Toure sloppily gave the ball away to allow Victor Anicheb to equalize for West Brom. Although Wenger still talks of United as a rival, an eighth loss of the title defence -- at Stoke on Saturday -- means the champions are seven points behind Liverpool. And Arsenal is 15 points ahead of United in its quest for a first league title in a decade, after bouncing back from a hard-fought 2-2 draw at Southampton on Tuesday. Despite dominating against Palace, Arsenal was frustrated throughout the first half in its pursuit of a goal against their relegation-threatened but well-organized London rivals. The breakthrough came inside two minutes of the restart as Oxlade-Chamberlain scored his first Arsenal goal since December 2012 on his first league start since being injured on the opening day of this season in August. Santi Cazorla weaved his way through the Palace defence and dinked the ball over for Oxlade-Chamberlain to lift the ball over goalkeeper Julian Speroni from close range. And the 20-year-old England midfielder netted a second in the 73rd minute as he slotted seamlessly back into the injury-hit team. Thomas Rosicky knocked the ball forward to Olivier Giroud, who backheeled it for Oxlade-Chamberlain to strike low into the net as Arsenal went a 10th game in all competitions unbeaten. "Its something I want to add to my game -- more goals -- so it was nice to get two today," he said. And this was a rare day when Luis Suarez couldnt score for Liverpool, instead turning provider at the Hawthorns. In a disjointed first-half display by his team, the Uruguay striker fed the ball to Sturridge at the far post to poke the ball into the West Brom net in the 24th minute. But the winning position was thrown away in the 67th when Toures slack cross-field clearance went straight to Anichebe, who levelled with a low shot from a central position. "Kolo probably shouldnt have received the ball under pressure, and a pass can be misplaced," Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers said. "We look to build our game from behind and that has won us many games this season, our ability to construct the game from behind. "Sometimes it will cost you. Today was unfortunately one of those days. Kolo Toure has been brilliant for me, a real leader and an outstanding professional and unfortunately it was that mistake, but theres no blame on him." The draw pushed West Brom a point clear of the relegation zone, just above Palace on goal difference. Michael kors Black Friday 2014 . Confusion set in when the British driver felt a searing pain before he ever reached it. Tristan Vautier, unable to see through the smoke of Wilsons spinning car, had driven directly into the side of Wilsons car. jerseys from china . With an NBA record-tying 10 blocked shots, the 7-foot All-Star centre put the Lakers on the good foot -- and the Denver Nuggets on their heels. Kobe Bryant scored 31 points, Bynum posted the Lakers first playoff triple-double in 21 years, and Los Angeles thoroughly controlled the tempo in a playoff-opening 103-88 victory Sunday. http://www.salechinajerseys.com/ . -- There were no smiles of accomplishment in the Trail Blazers locker-room on Tuesday night. cheap jerseys . This week, Manchester United maintained its 12-point lead atop the table with a shutout of QPR, Manchester City turned the tide and avoided losing ground with a win over Chelsea and Wigan convincingly pulled themselves out of relegation. Cheap Jerseys . Forget the remarkable finish, the one that kept the Pittsburgh Steelers in the playoff picture until the final minutes of the regular season.On Thursday, former Raptors Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady will be joining TSNs Michael Landsberg on Off The Record to discuss, amongst other things, the question that has plagued Raptors fans for over a decade: what could have been? The Carter/McGrady era was very short in Toronto - only two seasons - but not only did it precede the most successful era in Raptors history but it also created the single greatest what if? scenario the team has ever known. What if McGrady had re-upped with Toronto in 2000 instead of heading down to Orlando? What might have been if those two players spent their prime years together in Raptors purple? Its a question that haunts Raptors fans to this day, eleven years after McGrady left, and one that has come to define the Raptors organization in more ways than one. McGrady walking away from the Raptors in free agency was not a surprise in the summer of 2000 to those paying attention. His first year in Toronto was fraught with loneliness and marginalization. He had next to no role on the team after coming to the NBA straight out of Mount Zion Christian Academy in the 1997 draft and he clashed with then-head coach Butch Carter, who the team fired in an attempt to woo McGrady when he hit free agency. When McGradys distant cousin Vince Carter joined the team in McGradys second season, it was a bittersweet arrival. The two bonded, but Carter vastly outperformed McGrady on the court and immediately captured the affections of his home team in a way that McGrady was never given an opportunity to. Despite an uptick in minutes and making the Playoffs for the first time in 2000, McGrady simply didnt feel that Toronto was the place he wanted to set up shop in for the next seven years and instead he left to play closer to home in Orlando. The stink of that "defection" still resides at the ACC. McGrady had every right to leave Toronto as a free agent, and the prominence he was afforded with the Magic certainly catapulted his career trajectory. It was difficult for people in Toronto to understand, though, why a player would leave not only a team on the rise but also his own flesh-and-blood, and most arrived at the conclusion that Toronto (and by extension Canada) must have been to blame. No one pays much mind to his bitter early years, his status below Carter on the pecking order and his fondness for home. Instead, the blame is laid on the shoulders of the city of Toronto, regardless of whether or not McGrady ever pointed to it as his reason for leaving. His leaving eventually set the narrative for the departures of Vince Carter and Chris Bosh in subsequent years, even though both could be forgiven for wanting to leave teams mired in mediocrity - or worse - during their final seasons in Toronto. Carter has never had a bad thing to say about the city of Toronto, in fact, but his repeated praise has never registered with those who insist he left because he hated Canada. There is ceaseless insistence on the part of hoop-heads north of the border that no player truly wants to play in Toronto, and that any star they manage to get willl want to leave as soon as hes legally allowed to. cheap jerseys wholesale. The breakup of Carter/McGrady was the starting point for that mindset, and it is one that will not abate until an All-Star caliber player opts to spend his entire career playing for the Toronto Raptors. Thats the most tangible downside to McGrady leaving, anyway. We may never know how he and Carter would have developed as a tandem had they stayed together, but we definitely know the pall that hangs over the team because of his departure. In fact, one could argue that had the two of them stayed together that the team may not have been any better off than they were as time went by, but it made for a better story to imagine that they had. As romantic an idea as it is to imagine the Raptors as an unstoppable force in the early 2000s with Carter and McGrady as the teams centerpieces, however, the problems that would eventually bring the team down are still likely to have occurred whether T-Mac was there or not. Paying those two maximum-dollar salaries would have made it even harder for the team to secure the services of the legit center they always longed for but never acquired. It would have also impaired the teams ability to surround the club with enough complimentary talent to stay competitive, and it would have made it nearly impossible for the Raptors to keep both Antonio Davis and Alvin Williams in the summer of 2001. Its also worth remembering that those two players duplicated a lot of skills, and when you consider committing nearly $200 million to two players, you generally want to be able to cover more than one position on the basketball court with that money. More than anything, though, Carter and McGradys aversion to training, and the subsequent breakdowns of both of their bodies shortly after their split, is the most unavoidable thorn in the side of the what if? game. Injuries were a major part of what derailed the Raptors on their quest to take the next step as an organization, and having McGrady around through 2007 was hardly going to help matters in that area. Truth be told, the money freed up by McGrady not re-signing, and the balance that brought to the roster, was probably a key reason the Raptors improved as much as they did in 2001, ending the season one shot away from the Eastern Conference Finals. Its not an opinion shared by everyone, certainly, but the pair of them staying together was no sure-thing, and the team may have even been better off for their parting. It will be very interesting to hear those two reminisce about their days in Toronto, especially now that both are in the sunset of their careers and have the requisite perspective to look back and wonder at the paths each took. Neither one ever fully capitalized on their tremendous potential (very few do) and neither left a dent in the leagues history like so many predicted they would when they were younger. Would staying together in Toronto have given them a more lasting legacy? Well never know, but it will nonetheless be interesting to hear their take on it this Thursday when they appear on Off The Record. ' ' '