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I think Sunday might have been one of the best days in Premier League history: a title tussle with the post hit on repeat, a team winning 4-3 after almost fudging it up, a captain scoring a first career hat-trick when his team needed it most and a Merseyside derby won in as the clock ticked over to 100 minutes.
The end result is that Manchester City and Arsenal now have a title shootout that could come down to goal difference, Tottenham must win next weekend or they are surely down, there is ludicrous race for European football that goes all the way down to 13th and Chelsea are still foolish and broken.
Here is one piece of analysis on each of the top flight clubs who played this weekend (in reverse table order)…
This weekend’s results
- Brentford 0-0 Fulham
- Leeds 3-0 Wolves
- Newcastle 1-2 Bournemouth
- Tottenham 2-2 Brighton
- Chelsea 0-1 Man United
- Everton 1-2 Liverpool
- Aston Villa 4-3 Sunderland
- Nottingham Forest 4-1 Burnley
- Man City 2-1 Arsenal
Edwards’ safety isn’t guaranteed at Wolves
I feel pretty uncomfortable writing this, but I think this weekend confirmed that there is a clear route through which Rob Edwards isn’t Wolves’ manager on the opening day of next season.
We wrote last week about the end of this season setting the tone for the future, but Wolves were rotten again against Leeds.
The nagging doubt: Edwards entered the Championship last season as the manager of a relegated team and, unfortunately, was unable to turn around the mood at a club that had grown far too used to losing. That didn’t indicate a desperate flaw on his part; Luton simply needed a change. I wonder whether Wolves might be the same.
Protest is growing at Burnley
To say that Burnley supporters are sick of Scott Parker’s post-match interviews, where he talks up attitude and effort for most of a match, rather ignoring the inability to improve upon the consistent periods of shambolic performance, is an understatement.
But something has changed recently. Rather than simply expressing their annoyance that Parker continues to be backed despite this tepid attempt at surviving relegation, focus has switched to Alan Pace’s ownership and the lack of action that has soundtracked this dismal campaign.
And here’s a piece on exactly that. Burnley have wasted this season. And if they do not start next season at an electric pace in the Championship, the protests will grow in intensity.
Well, at least Tottenham’s players care…
Whether this was a step forwards or backwards, with another chance missed, probably depends upon your own perception of how this Tottenham season will end.
Roberto De Zerbi taking a single point from his first two games in charge is evidently not ideal, but then if Spurs play like this against Wolves, Everton and Leeds they could feasibly win each of those games. That was the point De Zerbi made post-match.
One thing we can agree upon is that these players care. Some supporters accused the playing staff of acquiescing to the fate of relegation, but on Saturday evening they pressed hard and won the ball high. The celebrations after Xavi Simons’s goal, intense jubilation and passion to match the fans in the stands, proved that there is still fight.
That fight can mean something, but only if Spurs now win at Wolves in a manner that suggests the accrual of momentum and the learning of De Zerbi’s tactical demands. It’s certainly not done yet.
Read more: Tottenham are running out of time and hope
West Ham
Play Crystal Palace on Monday night.
Nottingham Forest’s saviour must go to the World Cup
Last Friday, I wrote a piece after Morgan Gibbs-White starred for Nottingham Forest as they progressed past Porto to reach the Europa League semi-final. A quote from that piece:
“Since the turn of the year, Gibbs-White has scored eight times. More often than not, he is Forest’s one-man band: scorer, creator, captain, leader by example. For all the mistakes made by this club last summer, keeping hold of him might just save them.”
Make that 11 goals. With a 15-minute hat-trick against Burnley, his first career treble, Gibbs-White continues to drag Forest further out of trouble almost on his own.
I don’t care which out-of-form star you need to drop to make it happen; you cannot leave a player in this mood and making this great a difference to his club side out of England’s World Cup squad.
Okafor a brilliant call by Leeds
When Leeds signed Noah Okafor on 21 August last year, it quelled some of the desperate noise that supporters were making about the lack of firepower in a squad they feared would succumb to the stresses of life in the Premier League. Even then, it was a gamble: Okafor had scored 14 league goals across three years in the Austrian Bundesliga and Serie A.
Since settling in, he has been a revelation. Only one player in the Premier League has scored more goals than Okafor’s five since the beginning of February, and that’s despite the Swiss international missing four of Leeds’ nine matches during that time through injury. He is capable of drifting wide and taking on defenders or finding space in the box with his movement to finish chances.
Between him and 11-goal striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Leeds signed one of the most low-key yet effective forward combinations in the Premier League for £18m in total.
No response, no point for Newcastle
There are a couple of Newcastle United-adjacent journalists who believe that Eddie Howe is the best man to lead the club forward next season, but the fanbase is turning and it’s beginning to feel irretrievable.
Howe said that he would only stay if he believed that he was capable of inspiring the players to be at their best. Those players must know that the manager is under extraordinary pressure to improve the current form, which has seen them take the same number of points as Wolves over their last 10 games. On Saturday, they produced even worse than they had before.
The best way forward here, I think, is for Newcastle to work on their replacement; Andoni Iraola would be a fine appointment. Then, in a week or two, announce that Howe will be leaving at the end of the season. That undercuts the current negativity and gives supporters the chance to give Howe the send-off his previous work here justifies.
Crystal Palace
Play West Ham on Monday night.
Fulham’s attack is now broken
Fulham have now scored in just one of their last six matches in all competitions.
Before 15 March, they failed to muster a shot on target in two Premier League matches in almost three years: Crystal Palace in February 2025 and Arsenal in October 2025. In two of their four matches since 15 March, the Cottagers managed a combined one effort on target: against Forest, before drawing a blank against Brentford on Saturday.
The lack of intensity is worrying anyway, but such a distinct absence of drive in a local derby will be viewed as unforgivable by a fanbase getting quite sick of this current funk.
Fulham have failed to score in the first half during nine of their last 10 games. They start games at half pace and are unable to switch up the tempo, so the chances they do create for their forwards typically leave them crowded by defenders.
Sunderland’s overperformance kings (almost) do it again
Sunderland are one of the most fascinating Premier League teams, not least because they bought most of a new team and immediately hit the ground running.
They haven’t won more than two games in a row all season and they haven’t lost more than two in a row either. So of course they went 3-0 down, got back to 3-3 should have won the game and then lost it.
The overperformance in attack is ludicrous. Sunderland rank 19th in the Premier League for touches in the box per match, 16th for big chances created, 18th for expected goals and 18th for shots on target per match. And yet there are periods of matches where they look like one of the most inevitable teams in the division, such is the danger that they create.
New home, same sickening feeling for Everton
They filled the Hill Dickinson Stadium with hope that this new place might mark the start of a new future, too. European football was on the agenda; it still might be. More immediately, they aimed to set the tone against the neighbours.
Everton were the better team for all of this Merseyside derby’s first half and some of its second; that doesn’t matter at all now. There have been too many sickening late moments for this fanbase in this fixture. As the Liverpool end sang and danced for 15 minutes after full-time, we add this one to that list.
Until Virgil van Dijk’s cruel late blow, this was an afternoon to conclude that there is little to separate Liverpool and Everton for quality and endeavour. Beto, a striker transformed, was the perfect leader of an attack designed by David Moyes. He occupied both Van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate, won headers, pressed from the front, laid the ball off to teammates and scored Everton’s equaliser.
Injured after colliding heads with Konate, Beto was given a standing ovation and had his name chanted as a player who exemplifies everything good about this team: industry, self-improvement, squeezing the most out of his strengths and an ability to shut out the mistakes. His is a genuinely heartwarming tale.
There are, however, psychological headaches and hangovers that exist in this fixture and punish those who lack courage. Everton were guilty of sitting on a draw in the game’s final throes, 11 added minutes allowing Liverpool to accrue a little momentum. The European dream can still happen. Everton can still be great under Moyes ahead of schedule. But this one will hurt for a while.
Do Brighton have this summer’s big target?
Jan Paul van Hecke has now been at Brighton for almost six years. He’s had two loans, broken into the first team, become able to play in multiple positions and established himself internationally for the Netherlands, too.
Given his form over the last few months, I wonder whether Van Hecke might become the big central defender transfer story of this upcoming summer. He’s 25, there were leaked reports in April of him “being interested” in a move to a big English club this summer and we know from experience that Brighton will not stand in a player’s way if the fee works for them.
Liverpool need a centre-back; maybe two. Newcastle need a centre-back; maybe two. One of Arsenal and Manchester City always buy a centre-back. Manchester United might well need one. Chelsea need a good one. Let a bidding war commence.
Iraola shows humility and class as Bournemouth swansong begins
Although Bournemouth have announced that Iraola will be leaving at the end of this season, there is no suggestion that it will derail the end of their campaign.
All reports suggest that discussions were amicable and that Iraola is grateful for the manner in which the club accepted his decision. The response, winning away at Newcastle, suggests a ‘business as usual’ mood that epitomises how Iraola has gone about his business. And now, he has the chance to leave as a legend.
Bournemouth boast the longest unbeaten run of any Premier League team this season, a remarkable record now standing at 13 games and counting. European qualification is absolutely a possibility, but there’s a perfectly reasonable chance that Aston Villa win the Europa League and finish fifth. That creates a Champions League opportunity for anyone better than Chelsea and, right now, that certainly includes Bournemouth.
Brentford’s drawing run shows what might have been
Who wants a painfully obvious statement?
There is no difference between drawing three games and winning one by two goals while losing the other two by one. The unbeaten nature of the former record might generate more momentum psychologically, but in the final weeks of the season only the results matter.
This is absolutely not a criticism of Keith Andrews, who has been magnificent all season, but Brentford have now drawn five consecutive league matches. They have lost three league games since 6 December. But those draws – Bournemouth, Wolves, Leeds, Everton, Fulham – provide good reasons for wondering “what might have been”.
Brentford’s highest-ever top-flight finish was fifth in 1935-36, in the old First Division. It’s no exaggeration to say that they absolutely could have matched it, which is a ridiculous thing to write with a straight face.
How much have Chelsea ballsed this up?
You have to take a step back to appreciate just how much Chelsea have got wrong this season. Last summer, they were crowned literal world champions. Their creative accounting had allowed another huge spend. They had just finished fourth in the Premier League and looked set to get stronger.
On Saturday evening, Chelsea lost their fourth league game in a row without scoring for the first time since 1998. Liam Rosenior, who actually looked capable of generating some momentum during his early weeks, is now overseeing a period of such painful decline that it may well cause the club to miss out on next season’s Champions League.
Chelsea cannot afford to miss out on Europe’s premier competition without some significant financial questions. All they needed to do was appoint an experienced, capable manager to oversee mid-season uncertainty. They took an enormous gamble and it is blowing up in their face.
Salah leaves one last Liverpool legacy moment
Roughly 60 seconds before Mohamed Salah opened the scoring, the stadium announcer in the Hill Dickinson Stadium lauded Iliman Ndiaye – whose effort VAR ruled out for an offside call – as the first Merseyside derby goalscorer in this new Everton home, etching his name in history.
Salah did not get the same treatment, unsurprisingly. He will not care.
Liverpool’s wavering form and Champions League exit, combined with questions over Arne Slot’s future, have rendered Salah’s farewell tour a little unhelpful. The only way for him to flip that narrative is to contribute in the final third. Remarkably, this was only Salah’s second league goal away from Anfield since October.
Thanks to the events of the 100th minute, you suspect that Salah will always remember this one. Liverpool have a grip on a Champions League place again and the Egyptian is theirs for another five months at least.
Aston Villa’s striker is reborn
Ollie Watkins has a trophy to win, a top-four finish to aim for and a World Cup place to save. He might just be able to achieve all three if he keeps up his current form.
A brace against Sunderland means Watkins now has six goals in his last five Villa appearances between the Premier League and the Europa League; he had two in 15 directly beforehand.
The difference might just be confidence, but Watkins also seems to be competing physically with more impetus rather than simply running the channels and looking for space. He is occupying central defenders, creating more space for Morgan Rogers and in doing so increasing the chances of receiving the service he requires.
With Dominic Solanke – in the last England squad – hardly prolific at Tottenham, Watkins has the major tournament experience and is surely likely to be back in Thomas Tuchel’s thoughts. Timing is everything.
Man Utd’s talisman flourishes again in his rightful role
Picking faults with Ruben Amorim’s management and tactical prowess is like shooting a blue whale in a barrel. But of all his foolish decisions, the call to play Bruno Fernandes in a deeper central midfield position was the stupidest.
Amorim’s 3-4-3 formation dictated that there was no central attacking midfielder required, even though Manchester United had the most productive central attacking midfielder in the division.
That is Michael Carrick’s gain. The interim boss has pushed Bruno further forward, given him the central midfield cover that allows him to stay higher up the pitch and has reaped the rewards. Bruno has 18 assists, two off the all-time Premier League record; 11 of those have come in his last 13 appearances.
Sometimes, football management involves putting the best players in their best role and getting the best out of them.
Read more: Man Utd’s talisman is about to eclipse Henry and De Bruyne
Beware Man City in the springtime
By Mark Douglas
The big moments of Sunday’s heavyweight clash belonged to Manchester City, and none more so than the decisive one when Erling Haaland hooked the winning goal past David Raya mid-way through the second half.
It was a move started by Gianluigi Donnarumma hurling the ball to the outstanding Nico O’Reilly, whose combination with Jeremy Doku was superb before the ball skimmed across the penalty area for Haaland to finish.
How the big Norwegian relished that moment, the high point of a brutish running battle with Gabriel. The pair engaged in a skirmish that was a throwback to a bygone era, right down to Haaland resisting the urge to sprawl to the floor when the Brazilian thrust his head at him.
Haaland was the headline-grabber, but not the game changer; Bernardo Silva and O’Reilly vied for that title while Rayan Cherki was a joy to watch. His slaloming run and impudent finish on 16 minutes felt like a liberty in a game of the magnitude, setting the tone for a game played at breakneck speed.
Sure enough their lead lasted no more than two minutes. Much has been made about Arsenal’s inability to score goals but here they were presented with one: Donnarumma dawdling before being charged down by Kai Havertz for a gift-wrapped equaliser.
At that point, Arsenal were edging it. But, as Arteta is finding out, the last thing you want is to tussle with Guardiola and City in springtime.
Have gritty Arsenal left it too late?
By Mark Douglas
Where has this version of Arsenal been since the clocks went forward?
Forget dejection, Mikel Arteta’s biggest emotion this morning should be regret. Had they been this liberated against Bournemouth, Brentford or Wolves, they would still be in charge of their own destiny.
They still are, to an extent and there’s a deep irony that the contest might now go down to goal difference. An Arsenal side so reliant on set pieces to grind things out earlier in the season now need goals and for things to flow freely in their remaining fixtures. They not only need to win, they need to run up the score against the likes of Newcastle, Burnley and Palace.
The chances they created at the Etihad should given them hope. Twice they clattered the woodwork – Eberechi Eze’s shot squirming agonisingly off the inside of the post – and they breached City’s defence on enough occasions to give them hope.
It’s not over yet. But if the bell tolls for Arteta’s team, the regret will gnaw away at him. Why couldn’t they have done this a couple of weeks before?
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