LONDON, Dec 13: Now that they have all qualified for the knockout round of the Champions League, English soccer’s big four can concentrate on beating each other for the domestic title.

With the title race hotting up, Arsenal hosts Chelsea and Manchester United goes to Liverpool on Sunday and these high-powered confrontations on the biggest day of the season so far may give some clue where the championship is going this season.

Longtime leader Arsenal expectedly dropped four points in its last two matches and now only leads defending champion Manchester United by one. Improving Chelsea is three points behind the Gunners in third place and Liverpool, which is seven points behind, has a game in hand on the other three.

Victories for Chelsea and Liverpool will tighten it up even more as the campaign approaches the busy halfway stage when teams play four games in 11 days at a time the rest of Europe has a midwinter break.

Arsenal hopes that Robin van Persie will be ready to face the Blues. The Dutch forward has been sidelined for two months with a knee injury but played the first 60 minutes of Wednesday’s 2-1 Champions League victory over Steaua Bucharest without any problems.

The Liverpool-Man United game brings together one team which has won nine league titles since the other last won the championship. That’s a statistic that hurts Liverpool fans even though their team still holds the record of 18 championships, the last being in 1990. United now has 16.

With the big game at Liverpool coming up and his side already sure to win its Champions league group, United manager Alex Ferguson rested most of his regular starters for Wednesday’s 1-1 draw with AS Roma.

Sunday’s two games overshadow Saturday’s schedule although there are clubs who could catch Liverpool for fourth place.—AP