The Score is Daniel Storey’s weekly verdict on all 20 Premier League teams’ performances. Sign up here to receive the newsletter every Monday morning
A full set of Premier League fixtures. Not one postponement. Even Burnley played. A hard-fought draw to give them hope in a relegation dog-fight, while Claudio Ranieri’s time is surely up at Watford.
Elsewhere, Arsenal have plunged themselves into a crisis of their own making, Tottenham’s Stamford Bridge curse continues and Everton pull out all the stops to get the fans back onside post-Benitez.
Weekend’s results
Friday
- Watford 0-3 Norwich
Saturday
- Everton 0-1 Aston Villa
- Brentford 1-2 Wolves
- Leeds 0-1 Newcastle
- Manchester United 1-1 West Ham
- Southampton 1-1 Manchester City
Sunday
- Arsenal 0-0 Burnley
- Crystal Palace 1-3 Liverpool
- Leicester 1-1 Brighton
- Chelsea 2-0 Tottenham
Arsenal
On January 8, Arsenal allowed Ainsley Maitland-Niles to join Roma on loan. There was no inherent problem with that departure, but even at the time it seemed an odd move to sanction the exit of a central midfielder so early in the transfer window when Arsenal were hardly blessed with dependable central midfielders.
Thomas Partey and Mohamed Elneny had just left for Afcon, potentially ruling them out until February. That left Granit Xhaka – always liable to do something a little silly – and Albert Sambi Lokonga, who is 19 and in his first season in England. On 18 December, we were first told that Lokonga had tested positive for Covid-19.
Cut to Thursday night at the Emirates, and Partey having to play shortly after getting off a plane from Cameroon. Whether or not that played a part in his foolish second yellow card is unclear, but it left Arsenal short against Burnley. Cut again to Lokonga starting in central midfield against Burnley with Xhaka and Partey suspended and then Mikel Arteta explaining after the match that the funds might not be available to buy players in the final week of the transfer window.
This was not the only reason Arsenal failed to beat Burnley. They attempted 25 crosses and only completed two of them – Burnley have always been comfortable defending those. They should have scored at least once and once would surely have been enough. Arsenal have failed to score in four consecutive matches for the first time in over 16 years.
But it does create an image of a club that is intent on tripping itself up when given the chance to take large strides forward. And failing to beat Burnley at home despite dominating possession does rather fit the Bad Old Arsenal stereotype. In the first three-and-a-half weeks of 2022, Arsenal have been eliminated from both cup competitions, lost ground in the league and failed to score in four of their five matches.
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Aston Villa
Last week, we wondered whether Steven Gerrard might switch Aston Villa’s shape to 4-2-3-1 to accommodate both Emi Buendia and Philippe Coutinho in his starting XI. Instead, he stuck with the 4-3-3 but did manage to get both into the team – Buendia started on the right.
Although that may seem a little lopsided, it actually worked well because Buendia and Coutinho could drift infield to get close to Ollie Watkins and allow Lucas Digne and Matty Cash, two of the best overlapping full-backs in the division, to push forward and become auxiliary wingers. When that happens, Douglas Luiz and one of John McGinn and Jacob Ramsey stay deep to avoid Villa being caught on the counter.
And for all the excitement over Coutinho and Buendia – who seems to have been boosted by the Brazilian’s arrival – it is the improvement of Ramsey over this season that provides the most cause for optimism. It is early days (and we must beware of avoid piling too much pressure on a young player), but there isn’t much that Ramsey cannot do.
At the age of 20, he is comfortable with ball at feet, protecting it from opposition players, has already picked up a habit of scoring wonderful goals and yet is far from a luxury player. Watch that Everton counter when he screamed back to provide cover and ultimately break up the move. The competition for places at club and international level is fierce, but there are few more in-form English midfielders right now.
Brentford
An initial scan of Brentford’s recent results – four defeats on the spin and five in six – suggests that Thomas Frank’s team have lost all their defensive stability. In those four defeats (against Southampton, Liverpool, Manchester United and Wolves), Brentford have conceded over 30 per cent of their league goals for the season in 360 minutes.
But it’s more complicated than that. Firstly, Frank will be annoyed at his team’s ability to kill off their opponents. Against Manchester United, Brentford were dominant in the first half and should have been at least two goals up. Against Wolves on Saturday, they allowed their opponents an expected goals total of 0.2 and lost the game.
And in that statistic, another theory looms. With David Raya in goal this season, Brentford conceded from 31 per cent of the shots on target they faced. With Alvaro Fernandez in goal, they have conceded from 34.3 per cent of the shots on target they faced. With Jonas Lossl in goal, that shoots up to 72.4 per cent, albeit over a small sample size. But would Raya have dived for Moutinho’s shot? And would he have been beaten at the near post by Neves’s shot? In games of fine margins, these things make a huge difference.
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Brighton
From last week’s column:
“Graham Potter’s side have scored seven times in the final 10 minutes of their league games this season. Not only is that as many times as they did in the whole of last season (and puts them behind on Chelsea and Manchester City on that measure), it’s also at least three more goals than they have scored in any other 10-minute period.”
Another weekend, another goal in the last 10 minutes that saved Brighton a 1-1 draw. Yes they draw too many games to make a top-half finish a probability. Yes they were largely wretched for the first hour of the match and yes they merely took advantage of Leicester dropping deep. But Brighton never know when they are beaten. Conceding the opening goal in 13 of their 22 matches would be a cause of real concern if they weren’t so damn good at making amends. They have only lost four of those 13 matches.
Burnley
A rotten weekend (thanks to Newcastle and Norwich winning) was partly saved by a dogged, gutsy away display that ticked all the Burnley stereotypes: sacrificing possession, defending crosses, time-wasting to annoy their opponents, physical treatment that should probably have resulted in a red card, clean sheet.
This was also a welcome return to form for James Tarkowski and Ben Mee as a central defensive partnership. That pair have long been the key to Burnley’s success under Sean Dyche and both have struggled at times individually and in combination this season. Before Sunday, they had started 13 matches together this season and Burnley had kept only one clean sheet and conceded 26 goals. If those two can get back to their form of two years, Dyche will believe his team can stay up.
Chelsea
What a difference a fortnight makes. After the 1-0 defeat against Manchester City, Hakim Ziyech’s long-term Chelsea career looked in some doubt after he was deeply ineffective against the league leaders. At 28 and outside of an Ajax team that was set up to get the best out of him, Chelsea supporters feared that they were simply never going to see the form that made him such an attractive purchase.
Since then, Ziyech has scored Chelsea’s opener against Brighton and one of the goals of this Premier League season so far to score the opener against Tottenham. So much of what makes him dangerous relies upon Romelu Lukaku’s form. If Lukaku can keep central defenders busy, which he did against Spurs despite some lax finishing, Ziyech has the time to take shots from outside the box that remain his forte.
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And how lucky Chelsea are that Ziyech’s ill-discipline on international duty persuaded Vahid Halilhodzic not to pick him in his Morocco squad for Afcon. Halilhodzic had left Ziyech out of Morocco’s World Cup qualifiers following a row in which the manager accused him of turning up late and refusing to play. Their loss has been Chelsea’s huge gain.
Crystal Palace
There’s no point drawing too many conclusions on a home defeat to Liverpool during which Palace were often in the ascendancy and regularly created moments of danger, but there’s a wider point to make here.
After 22 matches last season, Roy Hodgson’s Palace had taken 29 points, scored 27 goals and were 15 points outside the relegation zone having played one more game than the team in 18th. After 22 matches this season, Patrick Vieira’s Palace have taken 24 points, scored four more goals but are only nine points outside the relegation zone having played one more game than the team in 18th. If nothing else, that proves the patience you manufacture by trying to play progressive football.
Everton
After the sacking of Rafael Benitez, Everton chose to play the hits this week to try and get supporters back onside. Farhad Moshiri wrote an open letter in which he asked for togetherness in adversity. Caretaker manager Duncan Ferguson bought drinks for supporters before the game and presumably demanded greater fight from his players.
There was no doubting the hunger of Everton’s team on Saturday, but no amount of effort can account for such a painful lack of creative quality. The side that faced Villa, with two wingers, Andre Gomes and Abdoulaye Doucoure in midfield and Richarlison and Dominic Calvert-Lewin in attack was arguably the most creative attack Everton can pick, but they remain far too easy to defend against. Ferguson was missing Everton’s second highest assist maker this season. Reason for positivity? No – that player is central defender Michael Keane.
Everton are now in real trouble given that Newcastle and Norwich both won. They are four points above the bottom three, have scored more than once in three of their last 14 league games (and lost two of those matches) and only Watford have taken fewer points from their last 15. Even given the relative dirge in the bottom four, anyone who has watched Everton over the last few months would struggle to claim that they are too good to go down.
Last season’s form offers some hope. Of the 10 matches Everton are still to play against the team from Leicester upwards, they took 22 from a possible 30 points in the same fixtures. But that was two managers, a director of football and an entirely different mood ago. If Everton don’t get the appointment of their next manager right (and initial reports suggest they are picking from a very odd shortlist), things will get worse before they get better.
Leeds United
This may seem a little kneejerk given that Leeds scored three times against Burnley and West Ham, but Saturday proved why they desperately need Patrick Bamford back. On the touchline, Marcelo Bielsa winced and worried as Leeds created chances against Newcastle but were ultimately undone by a sucker punch.
But Newcastle’s goal must also be classed as a mistake by Islan Meslier, who could only parry Jonjo Shelvey’s free kick into his goal after setting his feet for a shot over the wall. And that’s another issue. Meslier was one of the best goalkeepers in the league last season, ranking fourth in the division with a save percentage of 75.1 per cent; his expected save figure indicated that he saved Leeds over five goals according to the quality of shots faced.
This season, Meslier has dropped almost 10 save percentage points and the statistics suggest that he has cost Leeds over five goals according to the quality of chances faced. That is the worst of any goalkeeper in the Premier League.
Leicester City
You can read a piece on Brendan Rodgers’ pre-match words, expectations and Leicester City sitting back with a one-goal lead right here.
Liverpool
A vitally important win, given that Manchester City dropped points and that this was the last league game for which Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane will be absent. Liverpool now have an 18-day break until their next league game and they have actually gained points on City while that pair have been absent.
Over their past three matches, it appeared that Jurgen Klopp’s plan to account for that shortfall in attack was to make Liverpool defensively mean. At Selhurst Park, that plan was abandoned. At times, Liverpool played with a scandalously high defensive line that was eventually punished. Palace had chances to level the game and can feel aggrieved by the penalty decision that killed it off. On another day, this would have been a repeat of familiar, harrowing scenes for Liverpool away at Palace, a call back to 2014.
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Instead, we are celebrating the continuation of a title race and a Liverpool team that have won consecutive matches without Salah and Mane after three straight winless league games before they left for Cameroon. Illogical? Sure. But Klopp won’t care.
Manchester City
Apologies for the cowardice, but I’m bowing out from making any lasting conclusions about Manchester City dropping points for the first time since October on the basis that pretty much everything went wrong.
They played badly. They are still struggling to get Jack Grealish into a role – or perhaps we should say that Grealish is struggling to play a role – that makes him dangerous. Raheem Sterling should have scored. Kevin De Bruyne hit the woodwork. Gabriel Jesus hit the woodwork. They went 1-0 down and didn’t respond immediately. They could easily have been awarded a penalty and seen the opposition reduced to 10 men in the same incident. And still they didn’t lose.
City face Brentford, Norwich, Tottenham and Everton before the Manchester derby in March. And there’s very little reason to think that they won’t win all four and cement their title cakewalk. It’s up to those four sides to make that assumption look foolish.
Manchester United
Marcus Rashford has endured plenty of criticism in recent months, including – most gallingly of all – the insinuation from some supporters and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer that his work in campaigning for social justice and equality was taking his focus away from more important matters like on-pitch performance. Not only is that deeply unfair – people can do both! – it also reveals a very warped sense of what truly makes a difference.
Rather than Rashford’s work off the field distracting from his performance on it, is it not more likely that his confidence has been dented by his experience at the European Championship last summer, the impact of playing through injury for months on end and the difficulties of lurching from one manager who was all vibes and no system to another who is all system and no vibes?
Whatever the course, Rashford has been struggling. We too easily forget that this is a young man who was thrust into the limelight entirely by accident due to an injury crisis, forced to learn on the job at a club hamstrung by its own mismanagement and has been played as both a winger and centre forward. Forgive me for some degree of partisanship in finding both of his goal celebrations over the last week completely joyous.
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Newcastle United
So much of the conversation about Newcastle United since their takeover has been about how ambitious they will be in the transfer market that you wonder whether it has actually hampered their progress. The best strategy for extricating yourself from a relegation pickle is to aim for defensive dourness, grinding out points in adversity. Newcastle seemed to miss that: vast wealth can easily convince you of your ability to run before you have learnt to walk in a straight line.
In that context, the most significant and often most rewarding wins aren’t a 3-2 classic or a comeback draw, but the grimy, grubby 1-0 steals where your opponents cannot fathom how they have been left with nothing and you rejoice in undeserved spoils. It’s also exactly the type of result we wondered whether Eddie Howe could specialise in.
That is what makes Saturday’s win over Leeds so vital. Newcastle were not at their best. They were under the cosh for long periods at Elland Road. They lost three different players to injury. But they fought and they stayed firm and they scored a slightly fortuitous goal and, for once, they managed to avoid ceding a lead.
Newcastle are not safe yet – nowhere near. They still have significant barriers to staying up, not least that 10 of their remaining 17 games are against sides in 11th and above and they have taken two points from a possible 27 in those games so far this season. But they have at least proved that they can win ugly away from home and they have kept their first away clean sheet against a current Premier League team since January 2021. They have a platform now.
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Norwich City
Last week, this column kept the powder dry on Norwich because we wanted to see whether they had merely beaten a rotten Everton team or had actually found some solutions to their run of scoreless defeats. Perhaps there’s an argument that the same applies this weekend, given Norwich have caused the sacking of another manager, but a) winning consecutive Premier League matches for the first time since 2016 is significant, and b) 30 points might well be enough to stay up given the average standard of the bottom four. That gives Norwich every chance.
The most obvious change over the last two games has been the introduction of Adam Idah, a young man with something to prove who is desperate to show that he belongs at the highest level. Idah’s energy helps, but it also gives Norwich’s opponents something else to think about. Smith can set them up either in a 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2 with two strikers, but more importantly that shape can shift within the same game.
Having two strikers allows Norwich to apply more pressure from the front, something Teemu Pukki has struggled to do on his own. Watch that first goal again: the finish is brilliant but it all comes from Pukki twice winning the ball when he is able to apply pressure to a defender.
That shape also keeps both central defenders busy, meaning that Josh Sargent, who is probably a natural centre forward rather than a right winger, can make late runs into the box. Norwich’s first two goals were scored in very different ways, but both were the result of Sargeny arriving in the box from the right without anyone spotting his movement.
After the game, Smith accepted that playing two forwards means that Norwich sacrifice a man in midfield against most formations and conceded that he might have to reconsider the approach against higher-class teams. But with Norwich bottom of the table and already relegated in most people’s eyes, he has a shot to nothing to keep them up. For the Palace home game at least, he would be silly to change what is clearly working.
Southampton
It says everything about Southampton under Ralph Hasenhuttl – a baffling, infuriating, illogical, occasionally brilliant team – that they can remain undefeated in their two league fixtures against Manchester City in the same season that they have failed to beat Everton, Norwich, Newcastle and Burnley.
But there’s two things worth pointing out after Saturday, and both are complementary. The first is that, for all the criticism of Southampton’s away record, their Premier League safety will be assured by their excellent home form. The 1-0 defeat to Wolves in September, when Hasenhuttl’s side had 18 shots and double Wolves’ number of shots on target, was Southampton’s only home defeat this season. Since the start of 2021, they have beaten Liverpool and drawn with Manchester City, Chelsea, Tottenham and Manchester United at St Mary’s.
Also, we need to take a moment to recognise how good Mohammed Salisu has been this season. Salisu took a while to settle in English football, starting only eight matches this season. But after the loss of Jannik Vestergaard, he has stepped into the first team and become a leader of Southampton’s defence. Against Manchester City, he registered the most interceptions, clearances, duels won and touches of any Southampton player and took a shot to the face to save a goal. That’s how to make yourself a cult hero.
Tottenham
If your performance against one opponent can offer a definitive argument for why your club is unable to escape its own mediocrity, Tottenham’s performances in London derbies against Chelsea just about covers it. In their last seven Premier League meetings, Tottenham have lost all seven and only scored once. Even that was an own goal by Antonio Rudiger that was nothing more than an 89th-minute lack-of-consolation goal.
Under Antonio Conte, things have actually got worse in this regard. On Sunday, Tottenham became only the second English top-flight team in history to lose four matches against the same opponent in a single season without scoring a goal.
Conte has improved many things at Spurs, but he surely got his team selection and game management wrong on Sunday. Perhaps Sergio Reguilon wasn’t fully fit and Matt Doherty helped to change the game against Leicester on Wednesday, but the system relies upon the wing-backs to get forward and create chances. Neither Doherty nor Ryan Sessegnon created a chance between them or managed a shot on target against Chelsea. More worrying is that they didn’t even attempt a cross between them either.
Quite why Conte didn’t make any changes at half-time or bring on either of Reguilon or Emerson Royal at any point isn’t clear, but it made Tottenham so easy to defend against because everything came through the middle where Rudiger and Thiago Silva were able to mop up with ease. You have to stretch Chelsea across the pitch if you are to create space for Harry Kane to cause damage.
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Watford
Nobody can take what Claudio Ranieri did at Leicester City away from him. He took a group of players and led them to the most unthinkable league title victory in the game’s history. Even if some of those players went on to play for financial elite clubs and thrive in those circumstances, Ranieri still managed to keep them over-performing for the entirety of that incredible season.
But since then, Ranieri has drifted. Watford appointed him after he had been sacked by Nantes and, more pertinently, won three of his 17 matches as Fulham manager. Fulham were struggling to consolidate themselves in the Premier League; Ranieri wholly failed to turn around that slump.
And that is exactly what has happened at Watford. You can reason that this is a team low on quality (particularly in defence) and Ranieri did record surprising wins against Manchester United and Everton, but they have been far too easy to score goals against and are not effective enough in attack to account for that lack of defensive stability. Outside of those purple patches in their two wins – four goals in 13 minutes against Everton and two in two against United – Watford have scored 10 league goals in 1,156 and conceded 30.
Ranieri deserves to lose his job. We may often rage against managerial short-termism and a lack of patience in the Premier League, but Watford will be relegated if Ranieri stays and if there’s one thing worse than making a mistake it is exacerbating the impact of that same mistake by keeping faith long after hope has run out of things changing. Losing 3-0 at home to Norwich isn’t a red flag; it’s a white flag of abject surrender.
West Ham
West Ham supporters may be a little annoyed with discussion of why Declan Rice may want to leave the club. It can be infuriating when having a player in the form of their life merely becomes a precursor to discussion of why they should, will, can or want to move to an elite club. That’s particularly true when your club is still in the race to finish ahead of some of those clubs in the league.
But over the last two matches, we have seen why Rice might well believe that his future lies away from West Ham. He was outrageously good against Leeds and Manchester United, but has effectively had to carry out the job of two or three different players, all of whom have underperformed.
Against Leeds, he became a roaming No. 8 that carried the ball forward and tried to create moments of danger without ever forgetting his defensive duties. Against Manchester United, he brilliantly kept Bruno Fernandes quiet without ever forgetting that he had a responsibility to pass progressively to link together midfield and attack.
And in both matches, that West Ham somehow ended up losing, Rice was let down by those in front and behind him. If being the best player in your team can provide an ego boost – there’s nothing like the feeling of carrying a team on your back – it can also start to wear you down. It would be only natural for thoughts to drift of what might be if you were part of an elite midfield. And so the inevitable question came to mind on Saturday: how much better would that Manchester United midfield be with Rice in it?
Wolves
One of the form teams in the Premier League. Since the home defeat against Brentford on September 18 (and Wolves got their revenge on Saturday), Bruno Lage’s team have lost three times in the league and two of those were against Liverpool and Manchester City. Only four teams have taken more points since then.
Wolves are getting better, too. Over their last five matches, they remain unbeaten, have taken points off Manchester United and Chelsea and beaten feelgood opponents in Brighton and Brentford. Over the next four games (Tottenham, Arsenal, Leicester and West Ham) we will learn a great deal more about their top-six aspirations, but that Wolves are even in the conversation is astounding after the way they ended last season. Bruno Lage is quietly enjoying one of the greatest debut seasons of any Premier League manager in recent memory.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3InpLE6
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