Arsenal
While Granit Xhaka will certainly be missed by Arsenal over the next two months, but his absence through injury does at least allow Mikel Arteta to push on with his plan to create a new Arsenal era. Thomas Partey and Albert Sambi Lokonga started together at Brighton and will presumably now be Arteta’s first-choice midfield pairing until Xhaka is fit.
On initial viewing, it seems a perfect partnership. With Lokonga the ball-winner that allows Partey to drive forward with the ball, Arsenal have a dynamism in midfield that can occasionally be missed with the less mobile Xhaka starting. Alternatively, both can stay deep and allow Kieran Tierney to effectively play as a left-sided midfielder when Arsenal have possession, with Emile Smith Rowe drifting infield from the left to create the space.
Arsenal’s midfield is of particular interest given the manager in the away dugout on Monday evening. Many Arsenal supporters will tell you that Patrick Vieira hasn’t been adequately replaced in the 15 years since he left the club. Lokonga and Partey are out to prove that they merit the responsibility of taking Arsenal into the future.
Aston Villa
Dean Smith was an angry man on Saturday evening, and who can blame him? Having forged a position of great strength after goals from Danny Ings and the brilliant John McGinn, Villa first threw away a lead and then succumbed to a terrible late deflection. It was only the second time in Premier League history that they have lost a home game after being two goals ahead.
Although Wolves deserve credit for the manner in which they sensed danger after Romain Saiss’ goal, this was a defeat that Smith admitted was entirely self-inflicted. The substitution of Douglas Luiz for Marvelous Nakamba caused Villa to lose control in midfield (although Luiz had played for Brazil two days earlier, leaving Smith with little choice). Axel Tuanzebe was the most guilty party in central defence, but Tyrone Mings was also found ball-watching.
This need not be a cause for great panic. Villa have only lost to Chelsea, Tottenham and Wolves since the opening day and won’t play a probable title challenger until the end of November; Smith’s frustration will ease. But in a game against a local rival, there are no excuses for allowing your concentration to slip so abjectly that you snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Don’t let it happen again.
Brentford
Praising teams in defeat can often come across as a little patronising, but we can surely make an exception here. Chelsea may have won, kept another clean sheet and moved to the top of the Premier League on Saturday evening, but Brentford can count themselves highly unfortunate not to have taken at least a point. Their second-half performance, pinning Chelsea back and forcing Edouard Mendy to produce a number of superb saves and blocks, was a joy to behold.
This is all we ever want from promoted clubs. Brentford have a clear identity on and off the field and a manager who will surely be linked to bigger jobs if their form continues over the next six months. But more than all of that, they play football in a style that is incredibly entertaining for the neutral and refuse to compromise on their ideals even when facing an elite opponent. Having taken a point off Liverpool, matched Chelsea for long periods and beaten Arsenal and West Ham, Brentford should consider a top-half finish a distinct possibility. They might just have overtaken Leeds United as the best team to watch in the Premier League.
Brighton
A step in the wrong direction, given Norwich’s poor form this season and Brighton’s inability to gain control of midfield. With Yves Bissouma absent, a trio of Jakub Moder, Adam Lallana and Pascal Gross lacked the physicality to break up Norwich’s counter attacks and they were grateful for Norwich’s profligacy.
Still, Brighton are fourth in the league so let’s give this a positive spin. For the first time since December 2020, Tariq Lamptey made an appearance in the Premier League, coming on for the final 30 minutes at Carrow Road. Having missed ten months with a hamstring injury, there will be valid questions about whether Lamptey still has his electric pace and can avoid recurrences of the same injury. Keep your fingers crossed he can, because at 21 Lamptey can be one of the most exciting full-backs in the country.
Burnley
It says plenty about Burnley’s recent record at the Etihad Stadium and the financial inequalities within the Premier League that away supporters leaving the game on Saturday were probably pretty relieved at watching a 2-0 defeat. Burnley had lost their previous three games away at Manchester City 5-0; this represented a significant improvement.
And yet Burnley barely laid a glove on an opponent who were sluggish, messy and played almost exclusively in second gear and yet won both halves. Burnley had 29 per cent possession and two shots on target. It is no fault of Sean Dyche or his players, but there is no fixture in the Premier League that feels more futile than Manchester City vs Burnley.
That said, the pressure grows on Dyche to arrest this dismal start to the season with each passing week. Given that Burnley play Brentford and Chelsea in their next three league fixtures, the trip to St Mary’s next weekend can be filed under “must-not-lose”.
Chelsea
Mendy took the headlines after a man-of-the-match performance during which he saved the skin of a makeshift defence that included Malang Sarr and Trevoh Chalobah, and it’s clear that he was the defining factor in Chelsea maintaining their place on top of the league. But then we already knew Mendy was a vital component in Chelsea’s success.
More interesting is Ruben Loftus-Cheek’s redemption. Before the home victory over Southampton that preceded the international break, Loftus-Cheek had started three league games for Chelsea in two-and-a-half years. His future at Stamford Bridge looked bleak.
But Loftus-Cheek’s talent was never in doubt. He is still surely behind Mateo Kovacic, N’Golo Kante and Jorginho in the Chelsea central midfielder queue, but his ability to hold off an opponent to protect the ball and control the tempo of the game makes him more useful than Saul Niguez and Ross Barkley. If he’s happy to be the first reserve rather than pushing for first-team football (potentially at a club that now has unlimited funds to spend?), Loftus-Cheek can be an important part of Chelsea’s title challenge.
Crystal Palace
Palace’s away fixture at Arsenal last season was the perfect embodiment of Roy Hodgson’s tenure at the club. They had 32 per cent possession, strangled their opponents, had a couple of good chances on the break but eventually ground out a 0-0 draw that kept Palace above trouble but entrenched in the bottom half. Palace are unbeaten in their last three league games at the Emirates, winning one and drawing two. Sucking up Arsenal possession and hitting them on the counter has been proven to work.
But then this is a different Crystal Palace who may well attempt something new. Vieira needs no added incentive to try and cause a shock at Arsenal, but it would be highly significant if his Palace team were able to control possession against Arsenal and create the better chances. Win on Monday evening and Tuesday is spent with Arsenal fan accounts wondering whether Vieira would be better at Mikel Arteta’s job than Arteta.
Everton
A setback after the draw at Old Trafford, but further proof that the availability of Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison will determine Everton’s league finish this season. In 2020-21, Everton won only 33 per cent of their matches when either of the pair was absent (and 50 per cent with them). This season it’s 67 per cent with and 43 per cent without. The drop-off to Alex Iwobi and Salomon Rondon is enormous.
Leeds United
We must continue to caveat all criticism with due recognition of Leeds’ mounting list of absentees. Patrick Bamford, Raphinha, Robin Koch, Kalvin Phillips, Luke Ayling, Junior Firpo: that list probably includes Leeds’ three best outfield players and undoubtedly their three most important. Pascal Struijk, Jamie Shackleton and Tyler Roberts are useful bodies in a first-team squad, but starters in the Premier League they should not be.
But even accepting the issues with the side that faced Southampton on Saturday, this was a diabolical performance, surely the worst of Marcelo Bielsa’s time at Leeds. Leeds’ rise to the Premier League’s top half was defined by their high-intensity press and flowing counter-attacks. Against Southampton they were unable to pass the ball properly and were continuously robbed in possession. Their opponents were also missing key players and came into the game winless in the league.
“It was a fair result, we didn’t play well in any moment in the game,” Bielsa conceded after the game, and he’s right. Every team makes mistakes and very few teams get every element of their performance right, but Leeds were awful to a man. That suggests a loss of confidence caused by their poor early season form that Bielsa must address. To simply expect results to improve instantly when injured players return is a misguided assumption.
Leicester City
Leicester were clearly assisted by Manchester United’s lamentable defending, but this was a welcome change in fortune for Brendan Rodgers. In their nine matches prior to Saturday, Leicester had only beaten Millwall in the EFL Cup and Norwich in the Premier League. The suspicion was that Rodgers’ side had run out of juice. Along came Manchester United to make everything seem more rosy.
Rodgers deserves credit for the improvement, because it came with a switch in formation. Jonny Evans’ return to fitness allowed Rodgers to pick a central defensive three and wing-backs. More interesting was that he sacrificed width up front to play Kelechi Iheanacho and Jamie Vardy as a front two with James Maddison as a No 10. Iheanacho and Vardy were able to push back United’s centre-backs, creating a huge space into which James Maddison could drift (and usually escape Nemanja Matic).
In that formation, the wing-backs might ordinarily be expected to provide crosses. But with Vardy and Iheanacho not particularly tall and Harry Maguire most comfortable when defending balls into the box, Timothy Castagne and Ricardo Pereira looked to link play centrally more often than not – the pair provided two crosses between them.
But the biggest difference in Leicester came without the ball. Having struggled to press efficiently so far this season (at least in comparison to last year), Leicester were able to hound and hassle a slow, sloppy, lethargic opposition. The difference in intensity between the two teams was embarrassing.
This is the blueprint for Leicester. This formation might not last – leaving Harvey Barnes out of the team is likely not sustainable – but the attitude without the ball must. That alone will get worried supporters firmly back on side.
Liverpool
“For me, he’s the best,” said Jurgen Klopp after the latest edition of the Mohamed Salah golazo roadshow. “I see him every day and that makes it more easy for me, but Mr Lewandowski is out there, Ronaldo still scoring like crazy, Messi still putting out performances on a world-class level, Mbappe and all these kind of things and others will come. But, yes, in this moment he is for sure on top of that list.”
We don’t see him every day and we have less loyalty to Salah than Klopp does, but you’d be hard pushed to argue with his assessment that Salah is the best player in the world on current form. He has scored in eight consecutive matches for Liverpool and that’s before we cover his wonderful pass for Sadio Mane’s opener.
There is no one true definition of sporting greatness. It is a movable feast that incorporates emotional connection, subjectivity, bias and the moments of joy when rhyme and reason are deliberately shunned in favour of spontaneity. But one loose interpretation is that sporting greatness exists when the previously extraordinary is normalised to the point that it becomes expectation.
That is where we are with Salah now. A fortnight ago he produced one of the great individual Premier League goals, making defenders look silly and wriggling through a series of tight spots before curling a shot into the far corner. On Saturday, he did exactly the same thing.
Manchester City
There wasn’t an awful lot to learn from a home win over Burnley – Bernardo Silva is back in his 2018-19 pomp, Kevin De Bruyne can shoot with either foot, City occasionally get caught with their high defensive line – so instead let’s focus on one of Pep Guardiola’s substitutes. Cole Palmer managed the unusual double of playing in two games in a day, coming off the bench against Burnley and then scoring a hat-trick for City’s Under-23s against Leicester City.
Palmer is in the difficult position of being a potentially wonderful attacking player but also having to break into a midfield that already had Phil Foden as the breakout academy graduate. He has now broken into the England Under-21 squad – and impressed during both of their recent qualifiers – but at 19 has only played 21 minutes of senior league football.
In the case of Foden, Guardiola was adamant that he was better served by training with the first team and slowly increasing his minutes than going out on loan. Perhaps for Palmer, a different approach would be better. A loan move to a high-end Championship club in January makes some sense.
Manchester United
Another weekend, another abject farce. Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool and Manchester United, the four clubs expected to challenge for the title this season, have collectively played 22 league games against non-Big Six teams so far. In those 22 games, the four clubs have dropped 14 points. Manchester United account for 10 of those 14 points.
The flipside to that negativity is that Manchester United now face a run of difficult league opponents and they have indeed typically performed better against them under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. But it’s hard to have any faith in that now and even that record is losing a little credence. United were taken apart by Liverpool the last time they played each other.
And even if United do improve over the next few weeks, Solskjaer provoking another lurch to keep with the trend of his tenure, it does not excuse the gross underperformance that comes before it. If United do indeed beat Liverpool and Atalanta, it proves that they are capable of matching these teams. So what’s the explanation for the current rut?
Saturday was another new low for Solskjaer. Only David de Gea’s excellence stopped United conceding six or seven goals. They look under-coached, continue to concede high-quality chances from set pieces and continue to rely upon individual brilliance, but have now seemingly engineered a situation where they have so many of these individuals that it has undermined the team.
After the game, Solskjaer spoke almost exclusively in vague clichés about hunger and desire. Again, that’s simply not good enough. “Downing tools” is one of the great myths of modern football; it very rarely happens. What can happen is that excellent players can grow so frustrated by the lack of a coherent system that they become slightly demotivated, in exactly the same way as you might get sloppy in an office job if you didn’t believe the company’s strategies had any logic.
Look at those individuals: Jadon Sancho makes runs and tries to give-and-go but never gets it; Ronaldo acts as a target man but has too little movement around him; Bruno Fernandes looks frustrated at no longer being the dominant player in the team; Paul Pogba is asked to create from midfield but also babysit an immobile central midfield partner so ends up becoming an expensive jack of all trades.
The obvious response is to say that Manchester United simply need another central midfielder and that is the only way to realise their potential. But here’s the thing: managers improve players. If United had Trevoh Chalobah, Malang Sarr and Ruben Loftus-Cheek in their starting team, would they look as good as they do under Thomas Tuchel? Did Chelsea look like Champions League winners under Frank Lampard last season? And if those two clubs had reversed their decisions, with Tuchel replacing Solskjaer and Lampard remaining in place, are we expected to think the last 12 months at both would have been roughly the same?
Again we are told that Manchester United are backing Solskjaer to take them forward, banking on nostalgia and romance being as powerful a currency as tactical aptitude. They are a club that lacks a killer instinct who are sticking with a manager who lacks the same. Solskjaer has not been a disastrous appointment – far from it. He steadied the ship and helped to rebuild the connection between club and supporters.
But simply adding more and more players to the squad in the hope of finding a magic solution is like buying increasingly expensive furniture rather than fixing the hole in the roof and then wondering why everything gets wet when it rains. And it’s so damn frustrating to witness.
Newcastle United
An incredibly weird afternoon, for a number of reasons as explained here. But the end conclusion is that Steve Bruce will surely be sacked this week, and then begins a crucial appointment process. Get it wrong and Newcastle could have the richest owners in the world and be in the second tier.
Norwich City
Although keeping two clean sheets in a row and avoiding defeat against an excellent Brighton team is clear cause for optimism, even the positivity comes with caveats at Carrow Road. Draws are obviously preferable to defeats, but the painful wait for a win goes on and on. It’s Chelsea at Stamford Bridge next.
Norwich’s latest problem is their finishing. They have now taken 34 shots since last scoring a goal; many of them have been clear-cut chances. A team at Norwich’s level (in comparison to those clubs above them) simply cannot afford to be that generous. They are the second-least creative team in the Premier League and yet also boast the lowest percentage of their shots on target. That only ends one way.
Southampton
A brave call from Ralph Hasenhuttl that was fully vindicated. Armando Broja had never started a Premier League game before Saturday, but Hasenhuttl picked him over summer signing Adam Armstrong. Armstrong had taken 21 shots in the league but scored only once, often a victim of poor service as well as being guilty of poor finishing.
Broja largely mirrored Armstrong’s own form, having five shots, but he finished after Nathan Redmond’s excellent run and cross and kept Leeds’ central defenders busy despite operating on his own up front. He also became the first player from his country to score a Premier League goal.
Broja is still raw and may not start regular this season, but he offers an alternative option to Armstrong or could be a potential strike partner for him if Hasenhuttl wants to go a little more direct.
Tottenham
Tottenham’s performance was almost completely overlooked in the mania of Newcastle’s new ownership and Steve Bruce’s misery, but this was probably their most complete performance of the season. We should caveat that by pointing out that Newcastle are probably the easiest team to play away from home in the Premier League, given the lack of pressing through midfield. But there were signs of recuperation under Nuno Espirito Santo. For all the talk of crisis, Spurs are above Manchester United in the table and only outside the top four on goal difference.
Most important of all is that Harry Kane slowly appears to be returning to top form. His finish for Tottenham’s second goal was exquisite, and the way in which Spurs’ players ran to him in celebration suggests that there is no lingering issue after his summer transfer request. The “one of our own” chant from Tottenham supporters was back too. Goals are an effective healer.
Watford
Claudio Ranieri is the world’s most positive man, but even he struggled to keep a straight face as he claimed after his first match in charge that he had seen reasons for positivity as well as concern. Watford had three managers during their last season in the Premier League. Many more of these performances and Ranieri will be out by Christmas.
Clearly Watford were beaten by a better team – and losing to Liverpool will not determine Watford’s success this season – but this was an incredibly dispiriting performance during which Watford lacked any attacking invention or defensive communication. There was a moment in the second half when they had a shot on target, easily saved by Caoimhin Kelleher, that provoked ironic cheers from home supporters. That’s not a great way to make your mark on your new audience.
Ranieri obviously deserved huge praise for his role in the greatest shock in English football history, but the suspicion even before Saturday was that he has lost his touch; it went sour very quickly at Fulham. Clearly Ranieri will need longer on the training ground to imprint his style, but at Fulham it never really became clear what that style was. Watford could do with finding out quickly.
West Ham
There won’t be many grounds in the country that David Moyes would rather win as an away manager at than Goodison Park, but he has turned West Ham into one of the best away sides in the country. They have won seven and drawn two of their last nine away games in all competitions.
It’s a fairly simple – and effective – formula. They use the wing-backs to provide the width and cross the ball in open play. That allows Jarrod Bowen and Said Benrahma to drift infield and get close to Michail Antonio and make the most of the knock-downs. Moyes looks to make the most of set pieces and West Ham are one of the most successful teams in the league at creating chances from corners. It’s working and it might just allow them to make this season even better than last.
Wolves
The Bruno Lage era is well and truly underway. After wins away at Southampton and at home to Newcastle, Wolves fell two goals down against Villa having been comprehensively outplayed during the first 70 minutes of the match. There was a degree of good fortune to two of their goals – and they had largely resorted to “nothing to lose” football, but coming from two goals down to win away from home at least proves that there is nothing wrong with morale under the new manager.
Wolves have also continued their trend under Nuno of performing better in the second half of matches. They have scored seven of their eight league goals this season after the break. In the games in which they have scored the first goal of the match, the average time of their first goal was 52 minutes. Only two teams do so later on average.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3aKSlQX
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