John Terry is guaranteed a medal if Chelsea win the Premier League and Wayne Rooney has proved he still has a proper role to play at Manchester United - 10 THINGS WE LEARNED

• Premier League news: All the latest from the English top flight 
• John Terry has met the minimum number of games needed to win an EPL medal 
• Man United's Wayne Rooney has made nine assists this season in just 14 starts
• Quique Flores had 28 points this time last year while Walter Mazzarri has just 21
• Leroy Sane's first goal in 13 games for City marked a significant breakthrough
• Andy Carroll made a big contribution to West Ham's set-piece defending
• Premier League news: Ozil hasn't delivered in big games for Arsenal this season 

After another jam-packed weekend in the Premier League and the Football League, Sportsmail's RALPH ELLIS has sifted through the statistics. Here he shares what he learned this weekend.

1. Kevin Friend's controversial decision to show Moussa Sissoko only a yellow card for his studs-up challenge on Burnley's Stephen Ward should not have been a surprise.

The 45-year-old official is one of the most lenient. He has not shown a straight red in a Premier League game since November 2013 when he sent off Wes Brown at Stoke – a decision that was overturned on appeal because the Sunderland defender had got the ball.

The five players he has dismissed since then have all gone after being shown two yellows.

2. John Terry wasn't even on the bench for Chelsea's 1-0 win at Crystal Palace because of injury but at least knows that, whatever happens next, he is guaranteed a medal if Antonio Conte's side go on to win the title.

The six minutes he played at the end of last month's home win over Everton marked his fifth appearance, taking him to the minimum needed under rules that changed in 2012-13 from the old requirement of 10 games.

3. Wayne Rooney has proved he still has a proper role to play at Manchester United even if he won't ever be first name on the team sheet again.

His driving run and pass that paved the way for Zlatan Ibrahimovic to score the second goal in the 2-0 win at West Brom was Rooney's ninth assist this season in just 14 starts.

He also showed he's lost none of his willingness to work, making the most tackles of any player on the pitch and also running furthest before he was subbed with six minutes left.

4. Given the way that Quique Flores was unceremoniously sacked by Watford at the end of last season, it might be time for Walter Mazzarri to be getting a bit nervous.

The 1-0 defeat at Sunderland means the Hornets, after making a decent start to the season, have taken just three points from their last five games and a Boxing Day home match with Crystal Palace suddenly starts to look a bit awkward.

The club's owners the Pozzo family, currently on their eighth boss in four years since taking over, sacked Flores because they wanted improvement. He had 28 points this time last year while Mazzarri has just 21.

5. Leroy Sane's first goal in 13 appearances for Manchester City marked a significant breakthrough for the 20-year-old since his £37million summer move from Schalke.

The young German winger has struggled to settle since moving to England, and his mum has made regular flying visits to help him deal with his new life.

Sane proved he has the potential to get goals from out wide by scoring nine in all competitions for Schalke last season.

6. Andy Carroll was pulled to pieces on Match of the Day for his poor positional play and reluctance to make runs behind Hull's defence

But the giant striker did make a significant contribution to West Ham's defending at set-pieces and it is no coincidence that Slaven Bilic's side have kept clean sheets in back-to-back home games since his return to the starting line-up.

Against Hull he fought 29 duels, as many of them in his own box as on the halfway line, and made eight clearances – only central defender Winston Reid made more.

7. Remember the Da Silva twins who were going to be the best thing since sliced bread when Sir Alex Ferguson brought them from Brazil as teenagers?

It never worked out that way, and while Rafael ended up in French football at Lyon, Fabio has been drifting round the Championship at QPR then Cardiff.

After joining Middlesbrough in August, however, he's just beginning to find his feet in the Premier League again.

The 3-0 win over Swansea was his sixth game in a row and Boro have picked up seven points in that time.

8. Wes Brown was hardly noted for his goalscoring – he got just four in just over 300 League games of his career with first Manchester United then Sunderland.

Maybe there's a new lease of life for him at the age of 37 – his record for Blackburn reads played one, scored one, after making his debut to cover for an injury crisis in the 3-2 defeat by Reading.

9. Iran's national manager Carlos Queiroz has been keeping an eye on Peterborough defender Ryan Tafazolli who, though born in Sutton, is qualified to play for the country through his father.

The 6ft 5in defender, who started out in the same Southampton academy team as Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, has had rave reviews since moving from Mansfield in the summer.

Queiroz, best known here from his days as Sir Alex Ferguson's No 2 at Old Trafford, will have noted that 25-year-old Tafazolli got on the scoresheet in the 2-0 win at Charlton which moved Posh into the League One play-off places.

10. Thanks very much to the fixture computer (or not) from Yeovil supporters who found themselves having to make a 660-mile round trip to Carlisle on the Saturday before Christmas.

Some 96 of them made the remarkable effort to get there and had the reward that manager Darren Way and his players held a whip round and put £300 behind the bar in the away end to buy a few drinks.

Sadly that was all they could manage to make the trip worthwhile as the home team kept up their promotion chase with a 2-1 win.