• Chelsea may make an offer for Nasri if Luka Modric pursuit fails
• Midfielder has only 12 months remaining on his contract

Chelsea are monitoring Samir Nasri’s situation at Arsenal and could challenge Manchester United for the France international’s signature should their pursuit of alternative targets, principally Tottenham Hotspur’s Luka Modric, be frustrated.

Arsenal have, as yet, failed to convince Nasri to extend his stay at the Emirates Stadium, where the midfielder, a £15.8m signing from Marseille in 2008, has entered the final 12 months of his contract. United are expected to make a formal offer for the 24-year-old, with Arsenal wary of allowing the player to wind down his contract and leave for nothing next summer, but Chelsea are also actively considering stepping up their own interest given the Frenchman’s anticipated availability.

Nasri is not yet considered a front–line target by Chelsea’s new manager, André Villas-Boas – who intends to scrutinise his squad when the players return to pre-season training next week – with the club having targeted Modric as their preferred creative midfield recruit. An opening bid of about £22m has been rejected by Spurs, and the Tottenham chairman, Daniel Levy, who will meet Modric’s representatives next week, has made clear his objections to the prospect of losing the Croatia international. Should that pursuit continue to be blocked, Chelsea will switch their attentions more concertedly towards Nasri.

The Frenchman is apparently undecided as to where his future lies, but is well aware that personal terms will be more lucrative at United and Chelsea. There is an acceptance, too, at Arsenal, who had hoped to tie the player down to a new five-year contract worth £90,000 a week, that they cannot compete financially with the midfielder’s other suitors. Arsenal’s position is further complicated by the possibility that Manchester City may enter the fray later in the summer, particularly if they fail to secure Udinese’s highly-rated Chilean winger Alexis Sánchez.

City anticipate securing the £7m signing of Arsenal’s France full-back Gaël Clichy – another player who has entered the final year of his deal at the Emirates Stadium – next week, with the Londoners themselves close to getting Gervinho from Lille for about £10m. The Ivory Coast forward scored 15 goals en route to winning the French title last season but told France Football that he had “no hesitation” in agreeing the move to Arsenal.

Adel Taarabt, the Queens Park Rangers midfielder who said last month that Chelsea and Arsenal were interested in him, has been targeted by Paris St-Germain following the club’s takeover by Qatari Sports Investments. Reports in France suggest a bid of around £13.5m has been tabled by the French club for the 22-year-old, though QPR, who have yet to add to their ranks since their promotion to the Premier League, are expected to drive that price higher given that Spurs had a sell-on clause, believed to be 40% of the profit, inserted into the £600,000 deal that took Taarabt to Loftus Road last summer.

Chelsea have allowed the Dutch international defender Jeffrey Bruma to join the German club Hamburg on an initial season-long loan, with the option of a further 12 months. Frank Arnesen is the sporting director at Hamburg and has moved for the 19-year-old just weeks after leaving a similar post at Stamford Bridge.

The midfielder Jack Cork could also be on his way out of Chelsea as the Championship club Southampton are close to agreeing a transfer for the 22-year-old, who spent last season on loan at Burnley.

ChelseaTransfer windowArsenalAndré Villas-BoasManchester UnitedManchester CityDominic Fifieldguardian.co.uk

The failure of the leaders to seize the initiative means the run-in will be fraught, anxious and potentially entertaining

Chelsea have presented themselves with a streamlined season. Their week is not to be interrupted by a Champions League semi-final and any risk of striving for the FA Cup at Wembley was halted when Everton knocked them out on penalties after a replay as long ago as 19 February. Elimination from tournaments is not a sight to please the owner, Roman Abramovich, but there have been benefits.

In a line-up where key men such as John Terry, Ashley Cole, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba are all aged 30 or more, it may not be such a blow to have only one prize in mind. Defeat by Manchester United at Stamford Bridge in the first leg of the Champions League quarter-final proved irreversible in the return. If Chelsea seemed bedraggled around that time, they now look pristine on occasion.

Highly fortunate as they were to beat Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday, the resurgence of Carlo Ancelotti’s side has still been noteworthy. After all, it was only in February that they appeared an irrelevance. Chelsea’s elimination from the FA Cup had been preceded by a goalless draw at Craven Cottage and a loss to Liverpool on their own pitch.

This unintentional paring down of the programme has done Chelsea some good. Specifically, Drogba’s recovery from malaria may have been complemented by a reduced workload. The odds do continue to be heavily against the team, but were they able on Sunday to repeat the win at Old Trafford notched in April of last year Chelsea would top the Premier League on goal difference.

With United’s progress to the title all but taken for granted, the steadiness of their rivals’ form got only cursory attention. Now, however, it is noted that Chelsea have run up eight wins and a draw in nine League fixtures since the deadlock at Fulham. Such consistency is formidable and it has taken its toll of Ferguson’s men.

Over the same number of matches, United have scraped together nine points fewer than Chelsea’s 25. With the teams converging in the table, the tension can lead to a little eccentricity. It is agreed that each side should have had a penalty in Arsenal’s 1-0 win over United at the Emirates on Sunday, but, so far as any sense could be made of the pronouncement, Ferguson implied that his men had been wronged more deeply because the offence was blatant in their case.

We must be in that phase of the campaign where anxiety does the talking. If the managers are on edge, it will be because they are fully conscious of their sides’ flaws. Even if United win the last three matches their total of 82 points will be the lowest for Premier League champions in 10 years. Ferguson would not care about that and, in view of such fallibility, the rest of us can hope to be engrossed in the twists and turns of the closing afternoon of the League programme.

This ought to have been a season of opportunity for other clubs. While Manchester City look sure to take the significant yet still small step from last year’s fifth position to a Champions League qualifying slot, it is valid to ask if they could not have made an even deeper impact. Roberto Mancini may need time but, given such a budget, it does seem regrettable that he has treated us to a modest 23 away goals in the League.

Arsenal have frustrated people in their own particular manner. It is no longer so simple to accuse them of having a flimsy character while the side have the best away record, but there does not seem a great enough benefit when they perform in front of the 60,000 crowds at the Emirates. Regardless of the weekend win, anticlimaxes at their own ground have been too regular. The same syndrome besets Manchester City at Eastlands.

That sort of trend should be particularly galling for Arsenal, since Arsène Wenger has had much longer to shape a side than Mancini. Arsenal verge on the perverse in remaining just outside the struggle for the title. In away matches, Blackburn Rovers have the worst defensive record in the Premier League, yet they achieved their only clean sheet on the road at the Emirates last month and did so with little fuss.

Perhaps we should give thanks for all the quirks and flaws. Regardless of United’s anticipated appearance in the Champions League final, true fascination has lain in the muddling of all the leading clubs. In such a period, nobody will rule out the possibility of Ferguson’s team losing their first home match of the season when Chelsea arrive on Sunday.

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• Record 19th title in sight after 1-0 defeat of Everton
• ‘I told players to just win games’ against two other contenders

Sir Alex Ferguson said there was no reason why a record 19th championship could not be wrapped up inside a couple of weeks after Manchester United secured a late 1-0 victory over Everton.

United need seven points from their four remaining fixtures to guarantee the title but Ferguson was irked by suggestions that, because their next two league games are against Arsenal and Chelsea, the two London teams still have a chance of overhauling them.

“The thing that puzzles me is that people keep saying we still have to play Arsenal and Chelsea and they talk about these games as if we are going to lose them,” the Manchester United manager said after Everton’s defensive resilience was broken by Javier Hernández’s 83rd-minute header.

“Why can’t we win these games? Why can’t we go to the Emirates Stadium and win, as we have done previously? I told the players to forget about all that nonsense and just win their games.”

Manchester United have won their last two games at the Emirates, where they go next Sunday, and should they overcome Arsenal and beat Chelsea, Ferguson will lift the 12th Premier League title of his career on 8 May.

Of those dozen championships, this is likely to draw the least acclaim with United producing few performances that would disprove the charge by the Marseille manager, Didier Deschamps, that this is a team “that lacks fantasy”.

Nevertheless, Ferguson paid tribute to a side who have dropped only two points at Old Trafford all season and have now snatched half a dozen victories in the final 10 minutes.

“There is that winning attitude about them,” he said. “We will keep our heads down and not get carried away. There are only four games left and the way they are going about their business and the effort they have shown, it gives them an outstanding chance of being champions. You can test people’s character but they keep coming through.

“We had some great openings and could have had this match finished by half-time but it is in the traditions of Manchester United that we don’t do that. We always wait until the very end and keep everyone high on the edge of their seats but we get there.”

Ferguson appeared agitated on the touchline, complaining about what he regarded as Everton’s time-wasting and arguing that they should not have been allowed the five minutes of stoppage time that produced. The manager said he was confident a goal would come.

“I could feel it coming,” he said of a match that produced no injury issues before Tuesday’s Champions League semi-final first leg against Schalke. “We had the momentum and the crowd was up. When the crowd gets going at Old Trafford they suck the ball in. It was a tight game and some of Everton’s defending was fantastic.

“We had shots blocked near the line and their goalkeeper made two or three great saves. You say to yourself: ‘It’s going to be a late one’ but you can just smell the history of the club when it comes to scoring late and so it was here.

“The important thing is that we never gave up; we took gambles and we took risks. We put Wayne Rooney in the middle of the pitch and we brought Michael Owen and Ryan Giggs on.” Hernández’s goal was his 19th in his first season in the English game – as many as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer scored in his first season at Old Trafford.

“We did not expect this kind of return,” Ferguson said. “We thought his first year would be an introduction to the club; getting him adapted to English football and strengthening him up. But he has done all these things and more. He is special.”

Manchester UnitedSir Alex FergusonPremier LeagueEvertonArsenalChelseaTim Richguardian.co.uk