Premier League: Ronaldo masterclass, more misery for Lampard, Marsch-ing on together at Leeds

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Watford and Leeds were the big winners at the bottom of the Premier League, with 2-1 wins giving them hope of survival thanks to defeats for Everton, Burnley and Norwich.

Liverpool maintained their winning streak at Brighton (who have now lost five on the spin), putting pressure on Manchester City ahead of their Monday night trip to Selhurst Park.

Manchester United won the game of the weekend thanks to a Cristiano Ronaldo hattrick against Tottenham, but they remain behind Arsenal who still have three games in hand.

This weekend’s results

Saturday 12 March

Brighton 0-2 Liverpool

Brentford 2-0 Burnley

Manchester United 3-2 Tottenham

Sunday 13 March

Chelsea 1-0 Newcastle

Everton 0-1 Wolves

Leeds 2-1 Norwich

Southampton 1-2 Watford

West Ham 2-1 Aston Villa

Arsenal 2-0 Leicester

Monday 14 March

Crystal Palace vs Man City

Arsenal

There’s an odd feeling you get watching Arsenal live these days, an alien air that appears to be persevering even with things getting serious in the race to qualify for the Champions League for the first time since 2016: they all look like they’re having fun.

Not long ago, this would be exactly the type of fixture that would make Arsenal tense up as if they were all understanding en masse just how much it all meant. They’d start slowly, prompting a few groans from the Emirates crowd. Someone would overhit a pass and then dive into a challenge out of frustration to concede a free-kick, from which their opponents would score. You know the drill. Arsenal fans know the drill.

Instead, there was an insouciance and freedom to Arsenal’s play. They surged forward, they passed between the lines and they created, and missed, plenty of chances. They occasionally overplayed and even more occasionally allowed Leicester to have a sniff of goal, but then if these are the prices to pay for having fun then supporters will take it. At no point from minute one to minute 90 did you ever think that Arsenal wouldn’t win.

That fun is important, because it didn’t live here for a long time. During Arsene Wenegr’s late years they were hamstrung by the decline that engulfed them. During Unai Emery’s tenure they were hamstrung by the aesthetic limitations he seemed to enforce. Even this season, they were hamstrung by the all-encompassing Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang issue that curbed the enthusiasm in the young players. Now there is no handbrake.

This isn’t all down to youth, of course. Alexandre Lacazette is loving finally being the definite first-choice centre forward. Thomas Partey and Granit Xhaka have become a formidable central midfield partnership ostensibly because they seemed to have worked out when one should go forward and the other should cover them. Those three players become pillars around which the children can gambol as they please. It’s genuinely joyful to watch. Now to see if it can work against a team who have scored 12 goals against Arsenal since they last conceded.

Aston Villa

There’s not a great deal to say about a defeat to West Ham that comes after three straight wins and doesn’t really change much in Villa’s season, but it was interesting to see how West Ham managed to bully Steven Gerrard’s side a little in midfield.

With Jacob Ramsey, Douglas Luiz, John McGinn and Philippe Coutinho as a midfield four (albeit with very different responsibilities), Villa have nobody who is taller than 5ft 11in in the centre of the pitch. West Ham used that to their advantage, with Declan Rice and Tomas Soucek imposing themselves physically. You wonder if Gerrard might look for a Soucek type in the summer to give Villa a little more brawn.

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Brentford

It was lovely enough to see Christian Eriksen back on the pitch, but for him it was always about making a difference. He didn’t work so hard after his Euro 2020 collapse because he wanted to be given special favours. None of this means anything at all if he isn’t able to flourish.

Which all made his cross for Ivan Toney’s first goal all the more special. Toney has been crying out for that type of delivery all season; a whipped cross with his left foot that was basically impossible to defend and created a chance that was harder to miss than score.

But we also need to talk about Toney’s penalty record, not least because he has scored three in his last two games and Thomas Frank believes that he is the best at taking them in world football. What’s instructive about those three penalties is that each went into the same part of the goal. Goalkeepers can be confident where to dive (Nick Pope certainly knew on Saturday). With other players, that’s more than half the battle. But not Toney.

Toney’s run up is important. He shuns the usual long approach, preferring the five-a-side, two-step technique. Rather than trying to trick the goalkeeper into diving the wrong way, he aims to take the goalkeeper out of the equation. If he can aim the ball into the far left-hand corner, which he practices relentlessly, few goalkeepers can save it anyway. There’s enough power delivered that fingertips are not enough to keep the shot out.

Frank’s assessment clearly contains plenty of loyalty bias, but Toney has now scored all 15 of his penalties for Brentford. He has become a specialist. And it might just be the difference in Brentford’s season; they have earned them four points so far this season.

Brighton

And so the run continues without Adam Webster. Brighton have now lost five league games in a row for the first time since 2007 in League One. After the game, Graham Potter had little to say other than it clearly wasn’t good enough and his team needed to focus on arresting the slump over the final months of the season.

But that won’t be easy. Brighton still have to play Tottenham and Manchester United at home and Tottenham, Arsenal and Manchester City away. If they are to take anything from those games, Potter must work on making Brighton far better against the strongest teams in the league. Brighton’s record against current top-half teams reads: played 12, won 0, drawn six, lost six.

The interesting point on that dreadful record is that it is a mirror image of their strengths and weaknesses last season. In 2020/21, Brighton didn’t win any of their eight matches against the bottom four clubs in the Premier League but did beat two of the top three. This season, the opposite: Brighton have taken almost 40 per cent of their league points this season against the clubs currently in 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th.

Burnley

Given the form of Everton and Leeds over the last two months – and our hardwired assumption that Burnley will find a way to escape trouble – the suspicion would be that one of two new managers (Frank Lampard or Jesse Marsch) would take their team into the Championship.

But what if Burnley are the worst of the three? You don’t have to be particularly competent to pull clear of the bottom three (see Burnley’s weekend opponents) and Sean Dyche’s side still haven’t managed it. They still have Watford and Norwich to play away from home, but how much does that help when you have lost on the road to each of the four clubs directly above you – Newcastle, Brentford, Leeds, Everton?

This has become Burnley’s biggest problem. In 2018/19, they finished in the bottom six but took 2.1 points per game against the other teams in the bottom six; that form secured their survival. The following season, when Burnley finished tenth, their success was again propelled by beating the worst teams in the league; Burnley took 2.2 ppg against the bottom six.

But since then, that form has fallen off a cliff. Last season, Burnley took 11 points from 10 matches against the rest of the bottom six, including a miserable 1-0 defeat to Sheffield United. So far this season, they have taken only six points from eight matches against Newcastle, Brentford, Leeds, Everton, Watford and Norwich. The only victory came against Brentford in October, against whom they were beaten on Saturday. Fail to improve that record between now and May, and they will struggle to stay up.

Chelsea

A pleasant end to a very odd day for Chelsea supporters, most of whom were probably happy to focus on the football for an afternoon after a week of great upheaval. Kai Havertz is becoming Chelsea’s man of moments to allay any fears that they may become embroiled in a bunfight to finish in the top four. He has four goals and an assist in the last three games.

Havertz also spoke after the game on how Chelsea’s players are dealing with the uncertainty over the club’s future: “We feel sorry for everyone. The fans, the workers, the academy; for everyone it’s a tough time. We try to give everything for them.”

That seems to be the right attitude to have. Over the last few days there has been a wearisome – although not unsurprising – reaction from a section of Chelsea’s support who claim that the club have been badly treated and that they do not deserve to be punished for the actions of their owner.

But that doesn’t wash. Chelsea are not being punished – Roman Abramovich is. They are merely collateral within the sanctions, not the target of them. And what is the alternative – no punishments at all? Leave Chelsea out of any sanctions against Abramovich because it’s football? That makes no sense.

Still, that doesn’t mean that we cannot have sympathy for those members of staff (particularly those who are not high earners) whose financial futures have been cast into some doubt beyond the current season. Good on Havertz for mentioning them.

Crystal Palace

Palace go into Monday night’s fixture against Manchester City hoping to address one of the poorest runs in their Premier League history. Since beating Chelsea at Selhurst Park in October 2017, they have played 21 home league games against Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal. They have drawn four and lost 17 of those 21 matches.

The question is how Patrick Vieira chooses to approach the game. Under Roy Hodgson, Palace generally sat back in these fixtures, conceded early goals and were then unable to chase the game, suggesting that a high-intensity first quarter of the game would be advisable. But then trying to take on City at their own game is mighty difficult to pull off. Do you instead try to frustrate them, survive for the first 30 minutes and then use Wilfried Zaha on the counter attack in the manner that Wolves and Tottenham have done against City?

Everton

More evidence that Everton are a club completely out of belief, broken at the seams whose best chance of survival is that the teams around them fail to pick up enough points. Supporters pushed for Frank Lampard to get the job over Vitor Pereira, but we’ve seen nothing to suggest that he has injected any confidence. Lampard has now lost five of his six league matches in charge.

Everton signed three attacking players in January and now their attacking has dropped significantly from mediocrity to incompetence. They have an expected goals total of 1.7 across their last four league games combined, with and without the struggling Dominic Calvert-Lewin. Those problems are then exacerbated by a total lack of defensive resilience. They either make individual errors or suffer lapses in concentration or discipline.

Playing at Goodison was heralded as Everton’s likely saviour under Lampard, particularly after the performance in the 3-0 win over Leeds United. But after Sunday, that hardly feels like an advantage anymore. Everton were booed during the 1-0 defeat to Wolves, the atmosphere becoming toxic again as during Rafa Benitez’s tenure. Now it’s fuelled by concerns over relegation rather than dislike of the manager.

Everton do still have games in hand; win even one of them and they will have a cushion and bring Leeds right back into trouble. But then what good are games in hand when you aren’t winning and your next five opponents include four of the current top six and in-form Newcastle? When Lampard joined, all the talk was whether they were too good to go down. Now they might be too bad to stay up.

Leeds United

It would be boring if they did it the easy way, wouldn’t it? After Billy Gilmour had slid in to connect with Teemu Pukki’s low cross, a horrible silence fell across Elland Road, pierced by the jumps and shouts of chaos in the away end. The moment they had feared would come for the best part of an hour had occurred exactly when they needed it least. A small step in the right direction became a dreadful fall in the wrong one in the space of five seconds.

Jesse Marsch immediately turned to Joe Gelhardt. Plenty of Leeds supporters have argued that Gelhardt should be given more minutes. He doesn’t quite seem as haunted as the others, still half-full of the exuberance of youth. The team might be struggling, but Gelhardt is determined to make the most of his time on the pitch. He certainly did that on Sunday. Elland Road made so much noise that it felt like the soundwaves were shaking the television cameras.

Seasons change on goals like these. Moods do too. Every Leeds supporter knew that this – on paper their gentlest fixture of the season – had to end in victory or Leeds would be more likely to go down than stay up and Marsch would be fighting a tide of opinion that there was no point in him being here at all. It didn’t matter that Leeds hit the bar twice and had most of the chances. He knows the rule: you have to beat Norwich.

There’s a perfectly serviceable argument that Leeds would have taken at least three points from their last three games under Marcelo Bielsa, but Marsch did not ask for his predecessor to be sacked and it is not his fault that Leeds wanted to make him their head coach. He accepts that supporters will still chant Bielsa’s name and would not criticise them for doing so.

But this is his team now and this was his win, celebrated with a roar and a leap and something close to tears. Leeds’ next three fixtures are away at Wolves, at home to Southampton and away to Watford. It’s firmly in their own hands again.

Leicester City

A momentum-pricking defeat for Leicester and Brendan Rodgers, but one that was made easier for Arsenal by the manager’s team selection. That’s not intended as a criticism. Two months or so ago, Rodgers admitted that he didn’t even know what the Europa Conference League was as Leicester tumbled out of the Europa League group stage.

But after the 2-0 victory over Rennes (for which Rodgers picked a very strong team), it appears that he is motivated to win that competition. And why not? Leicester are not in the FA Cup any more and will not qualify for Europe next season by their league position. Going all out to try and get to a European final, any European final, is an eminently sensible move.

Who knows if the Leicester fans who made the trip to North London agree. With Youri Tielemans and Wilfred Ndidi left on the bench, Arsenal dominated the midfield and ultimately the match. Rodgers does need to be a little careful about slumping into poor league form again. They play several teams around them between now and May and could still feasibly finish in the bottom six (albeit they have three games in hand on some teams).

But there is a wider justification for Rodgers’ rotation. If that rest for Ndidi and Tielemans allows Leicester to gain safe passage to the quarter-finals of the Conference League, they would rank themselves alongside Marseille and Roma as the likeliest winners of the competition and they are the current bookmaker’s favourites. That would get them automatic entry into next season’s Europa League group stage.

Liverpool

The automatic assumption is that it is very easy to settle at Liverpool; Jurgen Klopp has clearly created an incredibly positive working environment in which the senior players set the tone. That’s particularly true in the front three, where there is enough quality to take the pressure off an individual while they acclimatise to a new team in a new country.

But there’s a flipside to that argument. There is so much quality in the final third at Liverpool that a new signing has to perform brilliantly as soon as they arrive to avoid sticking out. The competition for places only adds to the pressure.

Luis Diaz has managed that pressure extraordinarily well; he looks like he was made to play on Liverpool’s left flank. Against Brighton, he was their matchwinner and their best player. The bravery to commit to the header even when Robert Sanchez was charging out at head height should not be underestimated. Supporters love that kind of commitment.

Diaz is something different at Liverpool. He’s a direct dribbler, progressing the ball at least five yards towards goal on seven occasions on Saturday (Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah did so four times combined). Rather than the driving runs coming purely from the full-backs, Diaz can drop deep and do it himself.

He’s also incredibly high-energy. Against Brighton, Diaz made more tackles than any other Liverpool player and he constantly demands the ball (more touches than the other two forwards). That helps to create more space for Salah on the opposite flank. It’s hard to imagine a young forward more instantly suited to Klopp’s preferred style.

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Manchester City

Every week is a big week for Manchester City, a club whose wealth and ambition disallows regular steps in the wrong direction. They need to win away at Crystal Palace, who they lost to at home. They need to beat Burnley, a fixture squeezed into a rare empty midweek. They need to beat Southampton, who they have failed to beat in either league fixture this season.

But arguably the biggest event of their week comes on Friday, when they learn their fate in the Champions League quarter-final draw that will be dotted with European heavyweights. Given Manchester City’s clear desire to win that competition (although supporters may well prefer another league title) makes the timing of the two fixtures – either side of Liverpool in the Premier League – potentially vital in the title race.

Manchester United

This column has wondered repeatedly this season whether Cristiano Ronaldo has been holding Manchester United back. That point does not lose its weight just because of Saturday. Ronaldo’s lack of pressing, his lack of creativity and his lack of goals in recent months have not justified building a team around him. But you can’t not pick Ronaldo and by picking him you are submitting to building the team around him.

But that quandary must at least fade temporarily from view after Saturday’s hattrick. This was the first time in history that a Manchester United player had scored three lead-taking goals in a Premier League match. For all the discussion of his diminished returns, he remains a player capable of destroying a team on his own and an individual capable of overshadowing the obvious weaknesses in the collective.

This was not just a sensational, devastating goalscoring performance from Ronaldo, but a tour de force of his elite career. It began with the opportunistic long-range shot, a reminder of the goal against Porto in 2009 that won him the Puskas award that year and came at the end of an 18-month period that rubber-stamped his reputation as an elite goalscorer rather than a winger.

The second goal was the result of excellent movement, a true centre forward’s goal. This was the Ronaldo of the early Real Madrid era, who learnt the ability to end in the right place at the right time and use an efficiency of movement to become a penalty-box poacher. It also relied upon brilliant work from Jadon Sancho, who delights in being a creator.

The hattrick goal was the third age of Ronaldo: the leap, the timing, the neck muscles straining to impart enough power on the ball that two goalkeepers would have watched it pass by and cursed his brilliance. This is Ronaldo the target man, changing big games in moments.

This may have all come too late for Champions League qualification. Arsenal have one hand on fourth place given their form and their games in hand. But it is a timely reminder that when you have Ronaldo in the Champions League, you always have a chance. He faces Atletico Madrid at Old Trafford on Tuesday evening. Do not bet against a tie-defining repeat against one of his favourite opponents.

Newcastle United

After the defeat at Chelsea, during which Newcastle played well, Eddie Howe was asked about the execution of 81 criminals on the same day by the Saudi authorities. His answer, repeated, was that he wished to stick to football.

Which struck as a little odd. Surely it wouldn’t be remiss of Howe (particularly given the Saudi prince doesn’t directly own Newcastle, as per the Premier League’s judgement *looks to camera*) to offer the opinion that he thought that was a fairly distasteful thing to happen. It is a perfectly civil and human response, after all.

But Howe should expect more questions, whether he likes it or not. If the last week has taught us anything, it is that “stick to football” is far harder to pull off when English football and geopolitics have been forced together in an uneasy marriage. We should be asking these questions; they are relevant.

Norwich City

A crushing blow that surely ends any chance of staying up. The five-point gap to Everton is not insurmountable, but so many teams in the bottom group are still to play each other that Norwich might have to almost double their current points total in the final nine league games of the season. That’s just not going to happen.

For the second weekend in a row, Dean Smith railed against refereeing decisions after the match as the reason for his side’s defeat despite having no grounds to do so. That reflects his frustration that Norwich are simply not good enough. Things have improved under Smith’s management (Norwich have won as many games by a three-goal margin or more as they have lost since the turn of the year), but in the key moments, they either make a poor decision, commit a silly foul or miss a presentable chance.

And they do tend to collapse late in matches. Sunday was the 16th time this season that Norwich have conceded in the last 15 minutes of their league games. The main difference between the first and second tier is the ruthlessness with which you are punished for your mistakes. Which is why Norwich will probably win the Championship for the third time in five years next season.

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Southampton

Welcome back to the most baffling football club in the Premier League. Southampton were in serious danger of becoming consistent after a run that saw them lose one Premier League game between Christmas and early March and remain unbeaten at home since September. So of course they have lost three consecutive league games, including at home to both Newcastle and Watford.

There is no club in the league that has such a gap between their best and worst as Southampton and they produce very few performances that lie in between. On Sunday, they opted for The One Where None Of The Central Defenders Concentrate.

Tottenham

And so the rollercoaster goes on: win, loss, win, loss, win, loss, win, loss, loss, win, loss, win, loss, win, loss. If you want an appropriate image for Tottenham under Antonio Conte, Cristian Romero stood deflated while Manchester United players celebrated behind him, nine minutes after Romero had screamed in Harry Maguire’s face after his own goal, is a strong one. One step forward, one step back; that’s not good enough for this manager at this club.

Tottenham didn’t completely flunk it. This wasn’t Middlesbrough or Burnley, unacceptably abject surrender in favourable circumstances. They dominated for periods at Old Trafford, probably merited a draw but were undone by a phenomenal individual performance.

But does that make it any more palatable? For the first time under Conte, Spurs performed pretty well and lost. If that is merely a prelude to them throwing in one of their calamity displays, that’s not something to cling to. And they are further away from the top four than at any point since Conte arrived. Given they have an excellent manager and Harry Kane in wonderful form, what does that say for every other player?

Conte now faces seven league games that will define his first campaign as Tottenham manager. It does feel like we’ve been saying that for a while, but now there really are no more excuses. Their next seven league opponents are Brighton (twice), West Ham, Newcastle, Aston Villa, Brentford and Leicester. They don’t have to travel further from home than Birmingham and don’t play a single league game they shouldn’t win. Match Conte’s demands over the next two months and they clearly still have a shout of finishing fourth.

But it’s just as likely that, come the end of April, Conte is scratching his head and wondering what on earth is eating away at his team’s ability to find any consistency. And that would surely shape Conte’s own stomach for a job that now presents itself as a marathon effort.

Watford

Now then. Before Sunday, Watford had taken six points from their previous 48 available under two different managers to fall so perilously close to trouble that we assumed they might have run out of puff. Their last defeat, 4-0 to Wolves, was so abject that even Roy Hodgson seemed to have given up hope of a great escape.

Suddenly they have a lifeline, largely thanks to the form of Cucho Hernandez. Virtually every other Watford player appears haunted by the threat of relegation. Cucho is revelling in the role of carrying the team. He has scored or assisted each of Watford’s last four goals.

It says plenty about the quality of the Premier League’s bottom six that Watford began that terrible 16-game run of results in 16th place, have only dropped two places and are only in the bottom three on goal difference. But it means Hodgson’s side still have a shot. He’ll be annoyed that a three-week break has come at the worst possible time.

West Ham

It’s hard to put into words how hard it must be for the Premier League’s Ukrainian players to focus on their football. They are clearly in a privileged position, but that privilege does not extend to friends and extended family back home. That privilege can also provoke feelings of guilt and homesickness.

Playing football can take your mind off those troubles (routine plays a vital role in maintaining mental wellbeing) but we’re not talking about a kickabout in the park. The Premier League is an unforgiving league in which excellence comes as standard. That was why David Moyes offered Andrei Yarmolenko the option of taking some time off; you can’t half-focus on Premier League football and it would be entirely forgivable if Yarmolenko could not give more than half-focus.

It is no surprise that Yarmolenko broke down in tears after scoring against Aston Villa. Allow your emotions to be released – which every footballer will tell you happens involuntarily after scoring – and it’s hard to stop it. Suddenly all the worries and fears and sadness of the last few weeks comes with it.

Also, a word for the Aston Villa supporters who applauded Yarmolenko. It seems such a simple, obvious act of kindness that you wonder how anybody could do anything else. But if we have learnt anything over the last few years, it is that you should never underestimate the tribalism of football supporters nor forget to point out when people mercifully choose to shun it.

Wolves

It’s not exactly what Wolves supporters want to hear, but you do wonder whether Ruben Neves is ready to make the push this summer to join a Champions League club. He has improved again under Bruno Lage, now creating more, playing more progressive passes and dribbling more. He is Wolves’ best outfield player by a distance.

Neves has given Wolves his formative years. He turned 25 on Sunday (celebrating it with the assist for Conor Coady’s winner) and has played over 200 matches for Wolves in the Championship and Premier League. He arrived because of his connection with Jorge Mendes and he has been the greatest success of that relationship. Surely nobody at Molineux would resent him leaving for an elite club?

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