It genuinely feels more likely that Pep Guardiola resigns than he turns this around. Liverpool and Bukayo Saka are brilliant. Newcastle and Everton are not.
LiverpoolHaving beaten Real Madrid and Manchester-based Premier League champions within a week before, this is nothing new for Liverpool. Except the volume of these statement victories is far louder a decade and a half on.
The Reds vanquished a truly poor Real Madrid in March 2009 before ransacking Old Trafford five days later. Yet that glorious victory only closed the gap to four points with Sir Alex Ferguson’s side still holding a game in hand. They would ride out a mild storm to hold off that Liverpool challenge.
This is a different red beast entirely, one nine points clear in December, with the only perfect Champions League record, while juggling injury problems which have robbed them of their first-choice keeper, best finisher, only summer signing and now starting centre-half. Liverpool without Alisson was once unthinkable but he has overseen their only defeat in 20 games so far this season.
Liverpool without Klopp was a scenario supporters feared even more but this has been a genuinely astonishing transition. The serenity with which Arne Slot has handled it all is astounding and testament to the foundations his predecessor laid, which the Dutchman has been quick to credit at any possible opportunity.
This is Klopp’s work not just continued but improved, with landmark victories achieved in Slot’s specific image signposting a remarkable journey. Liverpool’s nemesis of the last half a decade was reduced to rubble by a team Pep Guardiola himself declared to be “unstoppable”. It is becoming more difficult to argue with each game.
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Chelsea
Football’s version of the ‘the worst person you know just made a great point’ meme remain in the sort of form which makes little conventional sense.
Chelsea sacked a manager who took them from 12th to sixth, spent another small fortune transforming the squad and having much of the ensuing drama play out publicly, and have still used no player older than 27 with experience eschewed in favour of youth.
Yet there they are, maintaining the pace of title favourites and dispatching teams with alarming ease.
But this is no flash in the pan. Over the last 300 days Chelsea have scored more goals than every team bar Arsenal and accrued the fourth-most points, eight fewer than the Gunners, Liverpool and Manchester City and 11 more than next best Newcastle.
If that doesn’t solidify their status as the best of the rest at the very least, their results fill in the details. Only Fulham, Aston Villa, Leicester, Southampton, Brentford, Everton and Wolves have earned fewer points against the traditional Big Six than Chelsea (2), who have won more points than anyone against the Other 14 than every team bar Liverpool.
Enzo Maresca is right that “we are not ready to compete with Arsenal, Liverpool and City”, but only in games directly against them. Across a season they are holding their own.
Kevin SchadeThere was more than enough reason for doubt to creep in on both sides: Brentford’s record £22m investment was always a project but a goal and an assist each in Schade’s first 25 games before a long-term injury suggested this would be an even slower burn than first envisaged; and that lay-off can only have knocked the German’s confidence when it was starting to click.
Schade matched that initial output within two games of his return in April before embarking on another barren run. Then came Leicester: an equalising assist as the starter for a match-winning first professional hat-trick.
This Brentford attack really is something else. Igor Thiago’s slow integration from the bench after his own injury problems following a record signing teases even further improvement. Ivan Toney has scored in only one of his last six matches.
Justin KluivertThe anti-Martin Palermo. Four players had previously taken three penalties in a Premier League game but only half of those had scored their first two efforts before being granted the opportunity to complete an uncontested 36-yard hat-trick.
Matt Clarke finally figured Craig Burley’s routine out during a 4-4 draw between Bradford and Derby in April 2000, while Steven Gerrard struck the post against Manchester United 14 years later when presented with the chance to make history.
Kluivert put one down the middle, the next to the keeper’s right and the last to his left, each with consummate and indecipherable ease. It is tougher than it sounds, as summed up by Andoni Iraola admitting “I was not completely sure I should allow him to take the third one” due to how those personal battles increase in “difficulty” each time.
Yet at no stage did Kluivert show it, explaining that for his final attempt he simply “waited” and the keeper “chose for me”. Rarely has a forward so definitively conquered a keeper mentally in a single game.
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Manchester UnitedRuben Amorim has frequently spoken of the need to rotate his squad due to fixture congestion, but also just to figure out who can play where at Manchester United. Just because the coach is unbending when it comes to his preferred system and formation, it doesn’t mean there has to be rigidity in terms of who plays.
Marcus Rashford suited the challenges posed by Ipswich; Rasmus Hojlund was ideal to face Bodo/Glimt; Joshua Zirkzee had the profile to exploit Everton’s weaknesses. Swap those players and games around and it might not have worked but each scored when given the opportunity to lead the line.
That bodes incredibly well and points to a level of buy-in not all incoming coaches benefit from at first. Amorim is working out who he can make the most use of and anyone who does not pull their weight knows the consequences.
“I think we need the characteristics of Josh in this game,” Amorim explained before the Everton match. “They have two centre-backs who are strong in the air and I want [someone] more technical who can reach the ball in different areas. It’s just an idea, let’s see the result.”
He cannot have missed it. Amorim has said that “more of a starting line-up” in the coming weeks as his ideas are integrated properly and the games ease, but his flexibility for specific opponents is already an impressive change.
Ola AinaThe best right-back on an expiring contract playing for a high-flying team in red? He bloody well must be.
Chris Wood receives the goalscoring plaudits and defensive praise is generally reserved for that glorious central partnership of Murillo and Nikola Milenkovic, but particularly at a club which harnesses squad harmony and morale so brilliantly, Aina brings everything together on and off the pitch.
Forest are right to treat that contract extension as a priority. There are genuinely precious few players better in that position in the Premier League than the free agent brought in quietly a couple of summers ago.
Bukayo SakaBy the end of this season, Saka will have broken into the top five in terms of combined goals and assists for Arsenal in the Premier League era. He recorded his 95th, 96th and 97th against West Ham with his corner, centre and penalty, surpassing Olivier Giroud (95) and going into eighth.
Immediately ahead of him stand Robert Pires (103), Cesc Fabregas (105) and Theo Walcott (107), with only slightly more work required to overhaul Ian Wright (123) and Robin van Persie (135). A reminder that Saka only turned 23 three months ago and was used as a left-back for ages.
Dennis Bergkamp (181) and Thierry Henry (249) are much further in the distance but at his current rate, Saka should eventually catch both and establish himself as one of the best Premier League players ever. His productivity and leadership instincts are not normal.
SouthamptonIt might come across as damning with faint praise, particularly in light of a draw which perhaps should have been a win, but it is notable just how well Southampton do to stay in games.
Brighton had seven shots in the opening half an hour, scoring, hitting the post and generally looking the biggest threat by an unflattering amount. Both of Southampton’s efforts in that time were blocked; the difference in quality between the two teams was stark.
A different Southampton side might have capitulated from there but while it is not either their most identifiable trait or that of Russell Martin teams, they have shown an underrated resilience. Saints have lost fewer league games by three goals or more this season than both other promoted sides, Manchester United and West Ham, and only as many by that margin as seven other teams, including Manchester City
They’re probably not going to lose 9-0 any time soon is what we’re saying here.
Crystal PalaceIn both of the last two Premier League seasons, Crystal Palace have scored four goals in first and second-half stoppage-time. Their record for a single campaign is just five, achieved in 2014/15 and 2021/22.
With Daniel Munoz’s 94th-minute equaliser against Newcastle, Palace’s late, late shows have produced three goals in added time already this season.
It is a simple enough change in mindset brought about by Oliver Glasner that games are never quite done. Palace ranked 19th for shots from the 75th minute onwards in games last season (99) and fourth in the same time period so far this (49). The chance to send your manager rampaging down the touchline in celebration must be quite the incentive.
FulhamA reaction to the Wolves debacle was the bare minimum and Fulham embraced the challenge. They do not lose consecutive games under Marco Silva too often, putting in successive poor performances on even rarer occasions.
The midfield pairing of Sasa Lukic and Sander Berge brought much better balance and purpose, while Tom Cairney only slightly tarnished his goalscoring afternoon with that atrocious tackle and red card.
It was Andreas Pereira’s worst game of a poor season, and the first he didn’t play.
Premier League losers
Pep Guardiola
It was a point made in the halcyon days of late November, when Manchester City could only dream of a run like five consecutive defeats. But these words feel even more pertinent after Guardiola declared a need for the champions to “reset and start from zero”.
‘Guardiola’s Manchester City have lost games before but rarely have they been beaten and made to look so amateurish. This is a vulnerable collection of players trying to remember what and how to do what came so natural and mechanical to them before… players realising their own mortality, wrestling with the incomprehension of inferiority.
‘Guardiola was still playing when Manchester City last lost five games in a row before this run; this is territory so unfamiliar for the manager, coaches and squad that any opponent should face them without any semblance of fear and assumptions of recovery based on the past must be disregarded.’
In short: there is widespread belief Manchester City will turn this around and that things cannot get worse, but why? This is a historic rut for the manager, coaches and players, something they will not simply emerge from on a trademark winning run through to the end of the season.
These issues are fundamental and deep-rooted and it feels like increasingly wishful thinking to simply assume fingers can be clicked and it all goes away. Manchester City will never sack Guardiola – not least after extending his contract recently – but it is genuinely starting to seem that his resignation is more likely than a turnaround.
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Jose Sa
The worst Premier League keeper this season based on statistics and spreadsheets also summarily failed the eye test against Bournemouth thanks to some incompetent peripheral vision.
Evanilson was in some sort of mood for Bournemouth but he took encouragement from the naivety of Sa, who inexplicably made the same mistake twice. While his teammates were of little assistance in either scenario, it was bizarrely amateurish from a Portugal international with almost 400 career appearances to his name.
The clash with a handful of home fans at half-time, presumably with the ejected supporter having taunted ‘Off! Off! Off! It’s an early bath for you, Mr. Sa!’, might help force another change between the posts, but it hardly seems to matter when both keepers Wolves have used this season are the two worst in the entire Premier League in terms of goals conceded per 90 minutes.
Gary O’Neil explained before the game that he wants to pick on “form” while avoiding “flipping” between the two; there is obvious justification in wanting to establish relationships and stability in a naturally individualised position but this was as bad as anything which lost Sam Johnstone his place.
The Wolves manager in the same press conference also said “Sam’s maybe slightly better with his feet” and if that felt like something of a backhanded compliment at the time, Sa’s method of dealing with Evanilson only confirmed it.
EvertonJoe Hart saying “I’ve played for Dyche and trust me all he will care about today is getting a clean sheet, that’s it” was about as big a revelation as Everton subsequently conceding four unanswered goals in a performance defined by defensive mistakes and attacking incompetence.
It was exactly the worst possible start to a harrowing run of games which has to force a change, either from manager or club. Even that midweek visit of a similarly panicking Wolves side looks dicey, boasting as they do the best attack in the bottom half.
After that, it’s 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th before the new year, which starts against 12th and 13th before bringing 4th and 7th into the equation. The last three Everton manager sackings came in December (Marco Silva, 2019), and January (Rafael Benitez and Frank Lampard, 2022 and 2023); if Dyche avoids making it four it would be his biggest career achievement.
Newcastle“It’s a difficult one to answer, because we haven’t changed anything,” said Eddie Howe when asked about Newcastle’s internal wrestle with the concept of chance creation.
And in a way that is completely fair enough. Newcastle broke their club record for most goals in a Premier League season in 2023/24 with 85 and it is more method than madness to try and keep as much of that approach in place as possible. Except ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ is not a permanent ethos to live by – and something is quite clearly so knackered in this Newcastle attack that altering nothing is foolish.
While the Magpies equalled the overall Premier League record for most different goalscorers in a season with 20 last campaign, no club has had fewer this season. Only five players have pitched in and it is only made more painfully clear with Alexander Isak struggling for form and fitness.
They became the first side in over four years to score in a Premier League game without having a shot on target and it would have been a grave injustice had they managed to finish the job in keeping Palace out.
Howe adding that “we were without a recognised striker” after the Isak injury and “were just lacking a cutting edge” as a result was veering into the realm of insulting supporter intelligence. However justified the reasons are for not using Callum Wilson and William Osula, a manager leaving both on the bench before pointing to a lack of options makes for an uncomfortable dichotomy. A coach admitting a clear issue had been allowed to fester for a third of the season “because we haven’t changed anything” isn’t much better.
BrightonAs the originators of the official blueprint all promoted Premier League clubs should aspire towards, how generous it is of Brighton to give such teams a direct helping hand.
Since their own rise to the top flight in 2017, the Seagulls’ league record against promoted clubs is a fairly miserable P42 W14 D17 L11. Even against the three teams which came up and went straight back down in 2023/24, Brighton only won twice, drew three times and lost once.
The same fate which befell Burnley, Luton and Sheffield United might well come to pass for Ipswich and Southampton this campaign, yet Brighton have again only managed to draw with both while scoring only once, with Leicester to come this weekend.
Brighton’s last nine home games against promoted clubs have delivered just two wins, a defeat, five draws and eight goals. It is a worrying theme which has extended across three managerial reigns, starting with a 0-0 stalemate against Norwich in April 2022 after which Graham Potter asked supporters to stop shouting “shoot”, with neither Roberto De Zerbi nor Fabian Hurzeler able to find a consistent solution to a curious problem.
SpursThe midweek-to-weekend fixture grind is not a new phenomenon for Tottenham as a club to grasp, but precisely the sort of thing Ange Postecoglou might mean when discussing more broadly his work in trying to fundamentally transform their way of thinking and acting.
Their understated injury crisis is a more obvious example of the physical and mental strain but so too is their record in games immediately after Europa League matches this season: a 3-0 win over Manchester United in September, but then defeats to Brighton, Crystal Palace and Ipswich before the Fulham draw.
A point against the Cottagers is not a specifically bad result in and of itself, but the trend it revealed is threatening to hold Spurs back even more than that thrashing of Manchester City.
Ipswich
A narrow defeat to sixth-placed Nottingham Forest is obviously no drama but when Ipswich have twice as many points against teams currently in the top half as they do those in the bottom, it places undue pressure on games which might otherwise be closer to a free hit.
Ipswich would not have circled the City Ground in late November as a prime opportunity to pick up points, but delivering positive results against Spurs and Manchester United after a disappointing draw with Leicester has an unavoidable consequence. While Ipswich thriving more as the underdog when expectations are lower is fine, those matches are naturally far more difficult to win or draw.
When the fine margins fall against them, as is likely more often than not, it exposes the need to do far better in games against those around them.
Emi MartinezOfficially the best keeper in the world in consecutive years, but the bravado has been notably absent this season and the numbers are not flattering: one clean sheet and a save percentage of 61.8% has contributed heavily to Villa’s defensive collapse.
It has led to some baffling decisions from a player whose confidence and character has been perhaps his greatest asset but now looks his most glaring weakness. The pass which Nicolas Jackson almost scored from was bizarre and the mix-up with Pau Torres captured the confused mood.
Is it a coincidence that this is the worst Martinez has looked since breaking through as a first-choice Premier League keeper, and the first season since in which Neal Maupay is playing in a different country? The answer is yes but also no.
LeicesterConor Coady’s only Premier League appearance this season had been as an 83rd-minute substitute who conceded the stoppage-time penalty from which Crystal Palace equalised in September.
Ben Dawson giving the centre-half his first Premier League start in 18 months might be the most caretaker manager team selection decision in recorded human history. Fair play to Brentford for taking advantage but it would have been hard not to.
West HamThe record for most Premier League goals conceded in a calendar year stands at 80, set by Newcastle in 2021. West Ham are on 68 with six fixtures remaining. Leicester (a), Wolves (h), Bournemouth (a), Brighton (h), Southampton (a) and Liverpool (h) have a chance to do the funniest thing.
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