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.
Less than a week away from what promises to be a season-defining showdown between Liverpool and Manchester City, the pair gave no ground as they both faced relegation-threatened clubs and produced routine victories.
Elsewhere, there were bragging rights up for grabs in a Midlands derby, a welcome return from injury as Leeds drew with Southampton and a thrashing in north London.
This weekend’s results
Saturday 2 April
- Liverpool 2-0 Watford
- Brighton 0-0 Norwich
- Burnley 0-2 Manchester City
- Chelsea 1-4 Brentford
- Leeds 1-1 Southampton
- Wolves 2-1 Aston Villa
- Manchester United 1-1 Leicester
Sunday 3 April
Monday 4 April
- Crystal Palace vs Arsenal (8pm)
Arsenal
It isn’t melodramatic to say that their next three league matches could define Arsenal’s next two years. With Manchester United seemingly slipping out of the top-four race (they are now as long as 8-1 to make it), we have a straight shoot-out between two north London clubs for Champions League qualification. For Arsenal, in particular, that would represent a significant improvement on pre-season predictions.
And now Arsenal must make good on that opportunity. Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea may well be clear of the rest again next season; Manchester United won’t be so ludicrously dysfunctional forever. You have to take your chances when they come.
The next three games are crucial, not just because they are winnable (Palace away, Brighton home, Southampton away) but because they come immediately before a trip to Chelsea and home game against Manchester United. Take maximum points until then and Arsenal can probably afford to take one point from those two matches and still have a grip on fourth place.
Aston Villa
Steven Gerrard is in a pickle again after his Aston Villa team have again lurched from good form to bad. It’s now three defeats on the spin to follow the run of defeats that itself succeeded a similar pattern. Unfairly or otherwise, it suggests that a manager hasn’t quite got a handle on what’s going wrong or right.
Gerrard has won eight of his first 19 matches as Villa manager. Given that Dean Smith was sacked after winning seven of his last 19 and that Gerrard was handed four new first-team signings in January, we are allowed to have expected a little more.
“It was a game we never turned up for from the first whistle,” said Gerrard after a rotten first-half display against Wolves, implying that the players were to blame. But Gerrard must share the guilt. Picking John McGinn as the holding midfielder did not work. McGinn prefers to roam and was swamped by Wolves’ midfield.
Gerrard continued his theme of calling out his players: “The players in the building have got to help me fix it now for the next eight games but, if not, we’ll get players who’ll help me fix it because we can’t keep giving sloppy goals away and gifts.”
That’s all very well, but it is the manager’s job to improve the players he has as well as asking for new ones. Of the 14 players used by Gerrard on Saturday, nine of them arrived at Villa Park in June 2020 or later. At some point, they need some stability rather than throwing money to create a bloated squad because the manager doesn’t like what he sees.
More generally, Gerrard seems to have a Philippe Coutinho problem. It’s not that Coutinho has been consistently poor, more that he has become the bellwether of the team. When he performs excellently, as against Leeds and Southampton, Villa tend to win comfortably. When Coutinho goes missing or the team is unable to create space for him – as against Watford, West Ham, Arsenal, Wolves and Newcastle – Villa struggle. They lost all five of those league games that Coutinho started.
Is that a sensible strategy, to make one player such a defining factor in your team’s performance when he’s a) currently only on loan, b) far from guaranteed to stay beyond this season and c) turns 30 in June? If the idea was that Gerrard used this half season to work on the best plan for next season, how can that happen if the most important player in the system might not be here beyond the short term?
Brentford
Thomas Frank is not a man to shy away from hyperbole. After Brentford’s emphatic 4-1 win at Stamford Bridge, he called Christian Eriksen the best signing in Brentford’s history. It’s a heck of a statement about a player on a six-month contract.
But then Frank’s claim has some merit. If Eriksen is the difference between Brentford staying up and going down, thus establishing them as a top-flight club and ensuring they continue to reap the financial rewards of Premier League broadcasting revenues, you cannot overstate its significance.
Brentford’s growing issue this season was that they failed to create sufficient chances from central areas, instead relying upon wing-backs and wide midfielders, and thus became predictable and so easy to defend. Since Eriksen arrived – one of the best creative attacking central midfielders over the Premier League’s last decade – everything has changed. It’s not just the chances Eriksen creates himself, but the space he creates for those wide players because opposition teams need at least one player to look after him.
It goes beyond the impact on the pitch. We did not know what version of Eriksen would return; we’re not even sure if he did. But by providing such a lift, by making good on lost time and by salvaging a career that looked lost, he will have immediately increased the team spirit threefold at Brentford. Now they aren’t just part of a relegation survival fight – they’re included in the feelgood sporting story of the year.
Brighton
You better believe that classic Brighton are back. The penalty miss was frustrating, particularly given that Brighton have missed six in the Premier League since the beginning of 2019-20. But it is the general theme of penalty-box wastage that is really killing the buzz on what is now a decent season rather than a good one.
During the seven matches of their current winless run, Brighton have had 102 shots. The only goal in that run was header by Lewis Dunk against Newcastle from approximately three yards out. The only surprise is that he didn’t miss it.
Burnley
When is a free hit not a free hit? Can it ever be a shot to nothing when you always end up with nothing?
Sean Dyche was very quick to point out the quality gap between Burnley and Manchester City, and he’s absolutely right that it is a daunting task, but he must still have been frustrated at failing to keep it tight for the opening 10 minutes. At that point the game was over because the game is always over for Burnley against City. Their last 10 fixtures have all ended in City wins; the aggregate scoreline was 34-1.
Dyche emphasised that Burnley’s safety will not be determined by their results in these fixtures, but their survival chances certainly will be deflated or enhanced by their result against Everton on Wednesday. Everton are the only team in the bottom group to have played the same number of games as Dyche’s side but remain the likeliest team to catch. Lose to them in midweek and it begins to look very bleak indeed, but Dyche will be re-emphasising to his players what a mess Everton are right now.
Chelsea
There are a few possible explanations – although not viable excuses – for Saturday’s shambolic last 40 minutes:
- 1) It came immediately after the international break, on the same weekend that, last season, Chelsea lost 5-2 at home to West Brom in very similar circumstances. Thomas Tuchel believed that his players suffered from signs of fatigue after a fortnight of travel and matches.
- 2) Chelsea are almost certain to finish in the top four and are not going to challenge for the title, thus making the Champions League their obvious priority. With Real Madrid to come this midweek at Stamford Bridge, it isn’t unreasonable to presume that players may have lacked a little intensity that Brentford exploited.
- 3) The circumstances of Antonio Rudiger’s goal, finally scoring one of the many long-range shots he attempts, seemed to make Chelsea a little complacent. All of their ‘proper’ defenders – Rudiger, Thiago Silva, Cesar Azpilicueta – were picked off and made to look foolish and sluggish.
Tuchel also has a striker dilemma ahead of Real Madrid. Romelu Lukaku’s struggles are well-documented, but his presence does seem to afford Kai Havertz extra room to manoeuvre and the pair do work well together. With Timo Werner at the moment, you barely even get that. He misses chances – the failure to even move towards goal with his one-one-one indicates a striker dismally short of confidence – and he isn’t even really connecting with Havertz as much any more. It’s now three league goals since November 2020.
More on Chelsea FC
Crystal Palace
If Patrick Vieira has one piece of advice for his Crystal Palace players as they prepare to face his old club, it should be to try to preserve some of their energy for the last knockings of the match. In the corresponding fixture last season, Arsenal scored in the 91st and 95th minute to win the game 3-1. In the reverse fixture this season, Arsenal scored in the 90th minute to salvage a point.
And that’s a pattern for Palace. They are one of only two teams in the Premier League (with Newcastle) not to win a single point through goals coming after the 75th minute. The difference between them and Newcastle is that Palace have lost nine points through goals scored after the 75th minute. Their points difference over that period (-9) is the worst in the Premier League.
Everton
After the defeat against Crystal Palace in the FA Cup a fortnight ago, Frank Lampard didn’t just read the riot act to his squad; he did it in public. He asked them if they had any bollocks, which caught the interviewer off guard. Those conversations happen routinely in the privacy of the changing room, but when they are aired in public it becomes a story. Lampard knows this.
He also knows that Everton’s reaction in their next match becomes doubly important as a result. So did Everton show enough of their bollocks against West Ham on Sunday? They committed 12 fouls and had a man sent off – does that count?
Lampard’s problem is that neither explanation is satisfactory. Either they aren’t committed enough, as Lampard intimated, and it is his job to motivate them or create a working environment in which they feel able to perform. The reason Rafael Benitez was sacked is because he had proven himself incapable of doing that, in part because of his history. But if things are no better for Lampard even when he was a popular choice (remember the anti-Vitor Pereira social media campaign), what does that say about him?
The other option is that Everton’s players are committed enough, but are so horribly out of form or low on confidence that it looks like they aren’t trying. And then it’s on Lampard to make them better, either through coaching or his man management.
Somehow, this is not yet an emergency. Everton face Burnley on Wednesday. Should they win that game, they will probably be safe. But right now Everton appear haunted by fear, hamstrung by the severity of their situation and their apparent incapability of addressing it. It’s all very well talking about the “what ifs” of them winning at Turf Moor, but Everton haven’t won anywhere other than Goodison inside 90 minutes since August.
Leeds United
A point closer, but two points dropped. Leeds only have seven games left and they need to build up a buffer in case Burnley pick up some momentum in the final weeks of the season. Given that Jesse Marsch’s side face Manchester City, Arsenal and Chelsea in three of those seven matches, they can ill-afford to throw away leads.
Marsch was complimentary of his players after the Southampton draw (this is pretty much his default position, in fairness): “I feel like the clarity of tactically what we want the game to look like was there, I thought we were balanced in the match and didn’t give much away. We’re still just trying to turn some of our advantages into real chances and then some of our real chances more into goals.”
That issue of taking chances is an interesting one with Patrick Bamford possibly ruled out for the rest of the season. Marsch has persisted with Daniel James as a central striker, but it clearly isn’t his best position for club or country. Rodrigo has scored three goals in recent weeks but is still not prolific enough and prefers to operate slightly deeper. Perhaps it is time to give Joe Gelhardt a run of starts?
Leicester City
Leicester were not perfect against Manchester United. Their hosts were so lackadaisical that anything approaching excellence would have been enough to win the game. Kelechi Iheanacho, for a number of reasons, both cost Leicester that shot and also earned them a point.
But it was lovely to see Wesley Fofana and Jonny Evans playing as a central defensive pair again. The last time they started together was the FA Cup final against Chelsea in May 2021 and boy Leicester have missed them. Add in James Justin and Timothy Castagne and you have four defenders who have been greatly missed at various points of the last 18 months. It could have been so different (and they still have PSV to come in the Conference League).
Liverpool
In our England World Cup 2022 runners and riders feature, I expressed some suspicion that Jordan Henderson might quickly drop down the central midfielder queue (although probably not before Qatar). On Saturday lunchtime, I found myself thinking the same about Henderson at Liverpool.
Henderson has been doubted before and remains a very important part of the leadership group with Liverpool and England. He is clearly an excellent all-rounder whom Jurgen Klopp and Gareth Southgate trust. I’m not intending to write him off hastily.
But watching Thiago Alcantara as the masterful passer, and seeing Fabinho come on as the defensive protector to ensure Liverpool would keep up their run of victories, and Henderson looked a little out of place. He’s very good at what he does, but you do wonder if Klopp might prefer a player with a little more dynamism – Yves Bissouma and Jude Bellingham have both been linked.
Just as importantly, if Mo Salah does stay beyond the summer (which seems likely), central midfield is the only position in the team that could possibly be upgraded. Bellingham would surely be the perfect option?
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Raheem Sterling would clearly have wanted to have started more than 60 per cent of Manchester City’s league fixtures this season. The arrival of Jack Grealish was always likely to either cause a shift in Sterling’s position or limit his league starts. At various times during this season, it has done both.
But Sterling remains one of – if not the – most effective attacking weapons that Pep Guardiola has. In the 17 matches in all competitions – not all of them starts – he has started as a wide left forward, Sterling has 10 goals and three assists. Sterling has become a goalscorer more than a creator but he still set up both of City’s goals on Saturday and looks to have kicked on again after a difficult first half of the season.
Guardiola believes that being given the England captaincy last week has given Sterling a huge boost, and you can see why. He went through some extraordinarily difficult times that were all wrapped up in his England performances and the media treatment that followed. That will have made being given that armband feel hugely symbolic, a total redemption.
It also suggests that a lack of Premier League starts is not going to hamper Sterling’s place in England’s World Cup starting XI because he has delivered so many times for Southgate. He now has the chance to play the pivotal role in City’s pursuit of domestic and European crowns.
Manchester United
This has all got very messy, very quickly. Scratch that – messy sounds interesting. It suggests that there is some self-created chaotic maelstrom that is eating up Manchester United when the opposite is true. There’s no chaos. There’s just a pretty dull football team that aren’t winning enough games to stay in the top-four race.
Occasionally Manchester United might bump into a chaotic team. And because United have become so beige that any smidgen of identity in an opponent invariably dictates the course of the match, those matches are chaotic: Leeds United 4-2, Tottenham 3-2. But the general rule is monotony, a team that is neither creative in attack nor hambolic in defence partaking in games that are decided by two or three moments for better and worse.
Ralf Rangnick arrived with the supposed remit to overhaul the team’s identity. But it was also clear that he would only have six months to do it, which presumably left players wondering whether it was really worth committing to a complete reset when someone else would be along in the summer to do roughly the same.
It hasn’t worked. Manchester United are different under Rangnick. Under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer they became a mess (and were getting worse) because there didn’t seem to be an overarching system. Now they look like a team that is being micromanaged but doesn’t quite seem to understand what those instructions are or how they should interpret them. They have won one of their last six matches. When Solskjaer was sacked, United were six points off the top four. If Arsenal win on Monday, they will still be six points off the top four.
Rangnick must take some blame for the lack of obvious cohesion. Nobody seems to move into space to receive the ball and few seem to automatically know where their best next passing option is. Some (Paul Pogba on Saturday, for sure) seem barely to know what role is expected of them – No 6? No 8? Retaining possession? Attempting high-risk passes?
But again, it goes above the manager. Manchester United are being punished because they either seem to choose the option that will never work or only ever commit piecemeal to an idea that could. Rangnick’s forte was as a builder of clubs (usually in a director role), so United appointed him as a firefighter with a longer-term consultancy element.
Now it looks as if Rangnick will play little part in the longer-term process, not involved in the appointment of the permanent manager position because Richard Arnold, Darren Fletcher and John Murtagh enjoy that responsibility. Which makes the two-year consultancy deal look like nothing more than a sweetener to oversee a long-term fix in a short-term period. And then everyone acts surprised when it doesn’t come off.
Newcastle United
Newcastle did arrive in north London with a plan. They put men behind the ball, looked to soak up pressure and counter when possible, either with a direct pass for Chris Wood to hold up or a ball down the channels for Allan Saint-Maximin to chase. In the first half, they did it very well. Newcastle crowded Tottenham’s space and forced them to resort to crosses from deep. They took the lead from a rare foray of their own.
But quite what happened in the second half will give Eddie Howe some thinking to do. Of course Tottenham have exceptional forwards who are capable of making anyone look foolish. But the manner in which Dan Burn and Fabian Schar were dragged so easily, and so horribly, out of position was difficult to watch at times.
Burn has been a wonderful signing, setting the mood for a new defensive resilience, but, he, as with Newcastle as a whole, has slipped a little either side of the international break. For all his physical presence and organisation, Burn’s forte really isn’t coping with a group of attackers that keep swapping positions and dropping deep into pockets of space that you must fill.
After three defeats on the spin, any perennially worried Newcastle supporter is fearing getting dragged back into trouble. That’s probably unnecessarily wasted energy, but at least a point against Wolves on Friday evening would put minds fully at rest. Advice to Bruno Lage: pick your most fluid and positionally versatile front three.
Norwich City
That is that, if we didn’t already know. Norwich might have taken a point away at Brighton, but they were hugely fortunate to get that and they needed more. They also allowed Brighton to take 31 shots and didn’t manage one on target of their own.
Norwich have still to face Manchester United, Aston Villa, Leicester and Wolves away from home. They have chronic issues scoring goals on the road that goes back far beyond Dean Smith’s time. In 2019-20, they set a new Premier League record when they scored seven away goals. This season they might have eight with four more away games left, but five of those came against Watford and Brentford.
Norwich simply don’t provide enough of a threat in the final third and they aren’t good enough at defending to justify it. Still, they’ll be back with us in August 2023.
Southampton
I’m afraid that there’s nothing else to do other than urge you to read this interview with James Ward-Prowse about his free-kick practice and success. He’s now on his own in second place behind David Beckham in the Premier League era.
Tottenham
When Antonio Conte improved Chelsea to the point that they became champions in 2016-17, it was his use of wing-backs that masterminded it. The shift from a back to back three, beginning during a defeat against Arsenal, was heralded as the magic moment; that’s true. But it was how the wing-backs performed in that system that was the key.
Victor Moses and Marcos Alonso were slightly surprise candidates for the role. Alonso had arrived from Fiorentina where he had excelled, but he’d also had three seasons at Bolton where he had hardly offered evidence that he would become a Premier League champion. Moses hadn’t played a league game for Chelsea for more than three years and that was as a winger.
It’s happening again, if not for a title tilt then at least a surge towards the top four that will keep Arsenal on their toes. As with Chelsea, the identity of the wing-backs is slightly surprising. Sergio Reguilon appeared an obvious candidate on the left, but Ryan Sessegnon has impressed recently. Emerson Royal, the signing from Barcelona, was a shoo-in on the right; enter Matt Doherty, back in his Wolves pomp.
The key with Conte’s wing-backs is not just that they provide width and attacking impetus, but that they get so high up the pitch that they allow the three attackers to get close to each other. That works particularly well at Tottenham because we know how comfortable Harry Kane and Son Heung-Min are at linking together. Dejan Kulusevski has fitted in exceptionally well and exceptionally quickly.
Against Newcastle, Conte was forced into changing the plan. Plenty of Tottenham supporters were worried that moving Doherty to the left to accommodate Emerson might kill his buzz; there were certainly groans when Newcastle opened the scoring. But when you get them that high up the pitch, and allow Kane, Son and Kulusevski to dance between them, you cannot fail to create chances. Tottenham are purring again.
It is reasonable too to wonder what might have been. What if they had managed to appoint Conte in the summer rather than their ill-conceived dalliance with Nuno? Why on earth did Nuno not use this formation at Tottenham, given that he had preferred it at Wolves and seemed to fit the profile of the squad? And would Spurs have a firm grip on a top-four spot if they had bought Rodrigo Bentancur and Kulusevski in the first week of January rather than the last?
A reminder that Manchester United turned down the chance to appoint Conte in November, reportedly over fears that the squad would be unable to adapt to his style. It may well go down as a sensationally poor decision by the end of May.
Watford
This was always the problem. Watford have taken seven home points this season and more than double that number away from home. They have lost their last eight home league games. The Premier League record for home defeats in a season is 14 and Watford only need to lose three of their next five to equal it.
Which puts a huge amount of pressure on the away form, obviously. And three of Watford’s last four away games were against Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea. Roy Hodgson’s side were better than expected at Anfield (and far, far better than in Hodgson’s first game in charge against the same opponents). They had a wonderful chance to score immediately before conceding the first goal and were still in the game until Fabinho’s penalty.
But then that is the quality gap – better teams will find a way to hold you at arm’s length and punish your mistakes. And it is likely to be repeated against Manchester City and possibly Chelsea too. There is now an emergency with Watford’s home form. They need to more than double their points total at Vicarage Road against Leeds, Brentford and Burnley.
West Ham
One of the most pleasing elements for West Ham supporters of this excellent season is the way in which their attacking players seem to fill in for one another, stepping up when the team needs it most.
It is very rare that all of Jarrod Bowen, Said Benrahma, Michail Antonio and Pablo Fornals have performed at their best in the same game, but that’s fine. The magic lies in one of them producing that best when the others around them are struggling. And, crucially, that appears to happen on rotation. There is no standout star in the front four; each of them contributes.
Sunday was a fine example. Antonio was a nuisance but nothing quite clicked. Fornals was roughly the same, but with slightly less industry. Benrahma had an off day. But there was Bowen, back from injury and doing enough running for two and producing almost as much quality.
That is the mark of a squad in which there is excellent team spirit and, suddenly, a little competition for places. Everyone wants to be part of the European dream.
Wolves
Was this Fabio Silva’s breakout game? The excellence from Max Kilman, Joao Moutinho and Conor Coady on display against Villa was nothing new – they have been consistently superb this season. But we were on the verge of giving up on Silva, or at least deeply suspicious that he isn’t going to provide value for money on his £35m fee.
The biggest worry with Silva is that he looks far too lightweight to cope in the Premier League, so it was slightly surprising to see him repeatedly bullying Tyrone Mings off the ball on Saturday. He also linked well with Daniel Podence and Francisco Trincao and generally looked far more comfortable. In his defence, Silva has only been given fleeting chances to impress and has at least two strikers ahead of him in the pecking order. He’s also still only 19.
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