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
Son Heung-min is back to his best, so are Arsenal and Erling Haaland is inevitable.
There were fewer Premier League matches than usual this weekend but there was no shortage of drama and talking points at both ends of the table. Son scored a 13-minute hat-trick after being dropped by Antonio Conte; Everton recorded their first victory of the campaign; and Arsenal’s 15-year-old academy prospect Ethan Nwaneri became the youngest player to feature in the competition’s history.
Mikel Arteta and Arsenal’s jubilant supporters will enjoy looking at the Premier League table for the next couple of weeks after surpassing Tottenham and Manchester City on their way to the summit. Things are looking bleak for Leicester and new-look Nottingham Forest, though, while West Ham’s slow start continued at Goodison Park.
This weekend’s results
Friday 16 September
- Aston Villa 1-0 Southampton
- Nottingham Forest 2-3 Fulham
Saturday 17 September
Sunday 18 September
*Chelsea vs Liverpool, Manchester United vs Leeds and Brighton vs Crystal Palace were all postponed
Arsenal
What a difference a year makes. On the opening night of 2021-22, Arsenal were bullied by Brentford and seemingly unnerved by the swell of energy that their opponents created. On Sunday they played as if holding a Championship team at bay in an FA Cup tie.
It was the perfect performance, for several reasons. Mikel Arteta’s team scored from a set piece early on, the opposite of what happened in that defeat last August. They scored a second reasonably quickly to quell any hopes of an immediate response, with Gabriel Jesus scoring and Granit Xhaka creating – more on that shortly. Then after half-time, when Thomas Frank presumably told his side to start quickly and pressure Arsenal, Martin Odegaard’s replacement scored a wonderful long-range goal.
If that wasn’t enough, they were even able to give a debut to a 15-year-old kid and make us all feel ancient.
15 years and 181 days.
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) September 18, 2022
The youngest player in Premier League history.
Congratulations, Ethan Nwaneri
@ArsenalAcademy pic.twitter.com/52pnzERNM8
Do not underestimate the psychological test that Arsenal have just passed. After losing at Old Trafford to reveal the same old nagging flaws, Arteta would have much preferred a home game against Everton, a fixture they won 5-1 last season. Instead they were forced to face another demon and slayed it efficiently.
Now back to Xhaka. In 2018-19, he was Arsenal’s second highest chance creator in the Premier League (behind Mesut Ozil, who basically had a free role). But over the last two seasons, with Arsenal well below full health and in need of a holding midfielder, Xhaka’s numbers tailed off badly: 16 chances created in 2,591 minutes in 2019-20 and 17 in 2,522 minutes in 2020-21.
Now Arsenal have greater protection in midfield – and are stronger defensively anyway – we are seeing more of Xhaka the creator. So far this season he has already created 14 chances in seven games and contributed one fewer assist than in the last two seasons combined.
Aston Villa
It has not been an easy few months for Tyrone Mings. No player wants to be dropped from the team and no captain wants to lose their armband. It sends a message – to the public as well as the individual – that your manager believes you unfit for purpose. Had Diego Carlos not suffered a serious injury, Mings may not be in the team at all.
But that setback to Carlos offered Mings a lifeline at Aston Villa and he has taken it. The victory over Southampton on Friday evening was hardly memorable. Southampton were rotten and Villa didn’t dismantle their opponent. It was gruff and gritty and Villa took one of several half-chances they created.
But Mings was the star. This was their first clean sheet at Villa Park against a current Premier League team since a 4-0 win over the same opponent in March. Mings won every header he contested, cleared every ball and led his defence. It was a passable impression of the Mings that became a fan favourite at Villa following his move from Bournemouth.
And he deserves great credit for that. Steven Gerrard has spoken repeatedly about the need to eliminate individual mistakes and some of that criticism was clearly aimed at his former captain.
After a midweek in which he was again omitted from Gareth Southgate’s England squad, Mings picked an opportune night to show his best attributes.
Bournemouth
Promoted teams, if they are to be successful, must learn to cope with different opponents. Against Nottingham Forest a fortnight ago, Bournemouth surged back into the match by throwing caution to the wind. One easy way of demonstrating their intention to attack is that Neto, their new goalkeeper, had the fewest touches of any starter.
Fast forward to St James’ Park on Saturday, where Gary O’Neil knew that Bournemouth would face a different test. Bournemouth had 20 per cent less possession than in their previous match. They stayed behind the ball and only counter-attacked when the situation made it sensible. They defended deep, looked to repel crosses and slowed down the game with passes across their defence. When those crosses were not headed clear, Neto came to claim.
And so, having had the fewest touches against Forest, Neto actually had more touches than any other Bournemouth player against Newcastle (51). That’s the first time a goalkeeper has done that this season, but demonstrates that O’Neil’s Bournemouth are capable of switching their strategy and being successful both ways.
Brentford
Thomas Frank accepted after the game that his team were outplayed by Arsenal and had few complaints at Brentford’s defeat. Frank changed formation to the back three that was so successful against Manchester United, but it didn’t work. Then, Brentford were able to make the most of robbing possession in the final third and maximising set-piece opportunities. Here, Arsenal dealt well with the set-piece threat and passed through the press.
The aim was presumably to get the wing-backs high up the pitch, forcing Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli towards their own goal and leaving Gabriel Jesus isolated. In fact, it had the opposite effect: removing a creative midfielder meant that Ivan Toney was starved of service, much to the delight of Arsenal’s supporters.
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More broadly, this defeat followed the Brentford pattern. Incredibly, in a run that stretches back to September 2021, Brentford have won the last nine Premier League matches in which they have scored first. That’s all very well, but deserves to take on a negative connotation: Brentford have only scored the first goal in nine of their last 39 league games.
Frank’s side have proven themselves capable of taking points after trailing (they would have been relegated last season if they had failed to do so), but that’s not something you can rely upon long term. They simply have to improve their start to matches.
Brighton
No game this weekend.
Chelsea
No game this weekend.
Crystal Palace
No game this weekend.
Everton
After Everton recorded consecutive league clean sheets for the first time since May 2021, it feels appropriate to congratulate them for their magnificent work in the transfer market this summer. For all the money spent on Amadou Onana, Dwight McNeil, Neal Maupay, James Garner and Idrissa Gueye, it is their recruitment of two central defenders for no transfer fees that stands out.
James Tarkowski always seemed a solid pickup from Burnley, given his schooling there in defensive positioning and diving in the way of every shot. But to get Conor Coady on loan from Wolves, who now appear to be a contender for a relegation fight, was extraordinary. Coady was apparently let go by Wolves because Bruno Lage wanted to move to a flat back four. But Coady is now impressing in exactly that system at Everton. Have Wolves dropped the ball?
Fulham
This is the second time that Joao Palhinha has featured in this column already this season, but he deserves it after another excellent display helped Fulham to come from behind at the City Ground on Friday evening. The one thing that the Portuguese midfielder hasn’t demonstrated in his early weeks in England was his shooting from distance. Cue a powerful, curling shot from 20 yards to give Fulham the lead.
WOW JOÃO!
— Fulham Football Club (@FulhamFC) September 17, 2022#FFC pic.twitter.com/V1MHggwBAH
Palinha isn’t a creative midfielder – he is yet to record a created chance in the league this season. But he is a regular shot-taker, ranking fourth at Fulham and is more than happy to pass the ball through midfield to a more creative player. He and Andreas Pereira work excellently in combination.
And without the ball, Palhinha is a monster. No player in the Premier League has won more tackles so far this season. “Pressures” is a statistic that records the number of times a player applies pressure to an opponent who is carrying or passing the ball. Not only does Palhinha rank first in the league for the number of pressures attempted, he has also done so successfully six more times than any other player.
At 27, Fulham were signing a midfielder for the present not the future – Palhinha has fitted in remarkably quickly.
Leeds United
No game this weekend.
Leicester
If this is to be the end of Brendan Rodgers’ tenure at Leicester – and supporters are certainly demanding as much – it was a fitting final performance because it contained all the hallmarks of the club’s decline:
1) The defending at set pieces has long been the running joke of the Premier League. The individuals in the team may change and a new set-piece coach may have been appointed, but Leicester’s inability to protect themselves from high-quality chances, particularly from corners, is embarrassing.
In the first half against Tottenham, Leicester were the better team. They pressed Tottenham high up the pitch successfully, winning possession and then using it to create chances. But they were undone by two regulation runs, one to the front post and one the back. They were also slightly fortunate not to concede an own goal, although replays showed that Danny Ward was probably fouled.
For all the organisation, success in these situations often comes down to desire. Why are Leicester’s players not spotting runs from opposition players quickly enough and busting a gut to ensure that they either block off those runs or challenge players in the air?
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Celtic fans chant 'if you hate the Royal Family clap your hands' before St Mirren clash18 September, 20222) Although Leicester did indeed press high successfully in the first half, they are ludicrously easy to attack against on the occasions when that press is bypassed. Rodgers picked a midfield with four forward-thinking players and one player holding the fort. Youri Tielemans was the second most defensive of the five and he is Leicester’s most regular tackler this season, but Tielemans wants to create attacking moves rather than stop them.
Two years ago, when Wilfred Ndidi was one of the most effective defensive screens in the country, that might have worked. Whether his serious injury has broken Ndidi, whether he has been deflated by having to play as a defender or whether he is simply drowning without support, he is a shell of his former self. As soon as the opposition has the ball in Leicester’s half, they are outnumbered and defenders are left with the choice to step out, engage and get passed around or sit back and leave huge spaces in front of them.
3) That openness in midfield could be masked – at least in some games against lower-quality opponents – if Rodgers was embracing chaos theory. If Leicester were creating a high number of high-quality chances and conceding the same, you could be convinced that this was a semi-deliberate strategy.
But that clearly isn’t the case. Leicester rank 16th for shot-creating actions per 90 minutes played, 17th for shots per 90 minutes and 14th for expected goals, a measure of the quality of chances they are creating. That might be acceptable if they were a Sean Dyche Burnley, aiming to keep shot numbers low at both ends of the pitch. But that’s evidently not true.
Instead, Leicester rank joint-eighth for goals scored because they have been pretty lucky. They have scored twice from low-percentage long-range shots (Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall against Brentford, James Maddison against Southampton). They played for 60 minutes against 10 men at Stamford Bridge. They scored from a penalty against Tottenham after a wild challenge by Davinson Sanchez. The evidence suggests that Leicester will score fewer goals if they continue to play the same, not more. And they’re conceding so many it doesn’t really matter anyway.
4) Danny Ward is struggling. Kasper Schmeichel’s form last season merited Leicester replacing him with a new goalkeeper, but promoting their reserve has not worked. Ward was not directly at fault for any of the goals against Spurs, but that’s not the point. He is conceding too many of the shots he faces for this to be bad luck.
Post-shot expected goals roughly measure a goalkeeper’s performance based on the statistical chances of saving a shot according to where it is directed. In the Premier League this season, the second worst club by this measure are Southampton with -3.5 (the quality of shots faced suggests that Southampton should have conceded 7.5 goals but they have conceded 11. Leicester’s figure is -7.1.)
Much has been made of Leicester’s summer inactivity, and you can make a case in Rodgers’ defence about not replacing Schmeichel. But Leicester only lost two first-team players over the summer and the other was Wesley Fofana. Fofana only played seven league games last season when Leicester finished eighth and they only kept one clean sheet in his last 15 league appearances for the club (and conceded six in two games this season). This goes beyond the loss of two players.
If that inactivity did make a difference to the morale of the squad (and it is perfectly reasonable to think that it might have), it was on Rodgers to solve the problem. That is what he is paid so much to do; he is one of the highest-paid managers in the division. You earn your money through an ability to sidestep issues and create a team that continues to perform above – or at least to the level – of its potential.
It’s not just that Leicester are bad; it’s that we have known for so long why Leicester are bad and so have every team they face. Rodgers overperformed during the first half of his tenure, but they have dropped away so much and so quickly that there is no obvious case for keeping him in charge. Leicester are bottom of the table, winless and have conceded more goals in their first seven matches than any other top-flight team since 1965. It would be better for everyone if this relationship ended now.
Liverpool
No game this weekend.
Manchester City
The most goals a Premier League player has ever scored in all competitions in a single season is 44. We have reached mid-September and Erling Haaland is almost a third of the way to that target. The question is now not whether he will take some time to settle in the Premier League or be eased into Manchester City’s shape, but whether he will stay fit all season and thus have a good shot at breaking Mohamed Salah’s record for goals in a 38-game Premier League season. He’s a third of the way to doing that too.
At Molineux on Saturday lunchtime, City replicated their most common Premier League performance: early goal, control of possession, offering slight hope to counter-attacking opponents, killing off the game. Amid all the chatter of fixture congestion and fatigue, you preserve your energy when you can. Both managers would have shaken hands on 2-0 at half-time.
But look a little deeper for City’s best player. Given City’s usual dominance of territory and possession, it is easier to notice Rodri as a progressive passer. It is certainly true that his consistency is astonishing, both in terms of passing accuracy and the decision-making of when to quicken the tempo. He is the conductor maestro.
Yet that isn’t even Rodri’s strongest suit. Three times in the first 15 minutes of the second half, the only minutes in which Wolves troubled City and forced their opponents to play facing their own goal, a ball was pulled back to roughly the penalty spot. Each time, a player in gold was well-placed to take a shot but the pass was intercepted by Rodri. His positional sense, without the ball, is like nothing else in the league.
Against Wolves, City had far more than half of the ball but no player on the pitch won possession more times than Rodri. No Manchester City players made more clearances or intercepted more passes. No midfielder on the pitch gave the ball away less often. He is the holding midfielder who can do everything.
Manchester United
No game this weekend.
Newcastle
One of the hardest teams in the Premier League to work out, not just because we’re not quite sure what Newcastle United’s owners expect from this season. Are Newcastle the side that haven’t won since the opening day and have only beaten a promoted club, putting Eddie Howe in trouble? Or are they the team that has only lost once (in the last seconds at Anfield), have drawn with Manchester City and can feel unfortunate that several decisions have gone against them, thus meaning Howe is taking them forward again? Who really knows.
But two things really are worth mentioning. The first is that, for all the transfer market work in 2022, a year during which Newcastle have signed a goalkeeper, two starting full-backs, an expensive central defender, a central midfielder for whom they broke their transfer record and a striker for whom they broke it again, they are still far too reliant on Allan Saint-Maximin’s unpredictable brilliance to create chances.
On Saturday, without Saint-Maximin, we saw that issue laid bare. Newcastle’s best chances came from set pieces (and they scored a penalty). In open play, they were too predictable and so relied upon crosses into the box (24 in total vs Bournemouth’s three). Even without captain Chris Mepham, Bournemouth dealt with those fairly comfortably.
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Between them, Newcastle’s other wide players (Miguel Almiron, Ryan Fraser, Matt Ritchie, Kieran Trippier, Matt Targett and Jacob Murphy) have successfully dribbled past a player 11 times this season; Saint-Maximin has done so 14 times by himself. Joelinton and Bruno Guimaraes are an excellent combination centrally and do drive forward with the ball, but without a threat out wide opposition teams can cover the two Brazilians and everything gets a little stodgy.
The repeated use of crossing brings us to the second point. Alexander Isak is certainly tall, but he’s also a modern forward who likes to roam from his centre forward position and bring others into play. Despite his height, Isak has played 192 matches in domestic league competition, European competition and for Sweden. He has only scored five headers in those matches and two of those were in the Swedish league in 2016 when he was 17.
The point is this: when you sign a striker for more than £50m, it seems reasonable to change the style of your attack to match the profile of the player rather than asking the player to match the style of the attack. On Saturday, Trippier alone attempted 16 crosses into the box to a front three of Isak, Fraser and Almiron – none of those are particularly effective in the air. And if that is the plan, to cross in search of chances because you’re finding things difficult through the middle, it’s probably worth giving Chris Wood more than a minute and playing with a front two of him and Isak as a combination.
Nottingham Forest
This is now an emergency situation. Every promoted club targets certain fixtures and privately labels them must-win or must-not-lose as they aim to reach 40 points and survive. If you face the other two promoted clubs at home in your first seven matches and twice hold the lead at half-time, nothing less than four points is acceptable. Nottingham Forest have somehow taken none and have conceded six goals in 90 combined minutes.
It is difficult enough for a manager when your club has signed so many new players, whether or not that was a necessity (and, to an extent, it was at the City Ground). Most will have been promised first-team football and, from what we know of Evangelos Marinakis and his son, they will also have been sold an ambitious project that aimed for midtable comfort this season.
The practicalities of acclimatising those players is made far more difficult after a couple of defeats, because the pressure grows on the manager to change the team in search of the solution and Forest have so many new signings in reserve that Cooper has little option. Ideally, he wants to rely upon a few players he knows that can make up the core of the team. But the argument grows – for supporters and the club – that he has to make a completely new team on the hoof. It’s incredibly difficult.
So look at Forest’s team. After seven matches, Forest have used 23 players – no team in the Premier League have used more. They have started six different central defenders, six different central midfielders, three different players in the advanced central midfield role and five different strikers. What chance does any team have of producing consistency in those circumstances and yet what choice does Cooper have but to keep searching for the right answer?
This can be fixed. If Forest are even in touch with 17th place when the World Cup starts, Cooper should be highly commended for his work and we should expect them to improve in the second half of the season. But right now, that looks like a distant hope and the ambition of the owners – who told the supporters publicly what he expected this season – makes things harder still. Go back to the last two words of our Forest season preview for all you need to know: “Good luck”.
Southampton
From one manager struggling with a host of new players to another. Southampton signed eight new outfield players, all of whom were aged between 19 and 25. Southampton’s results early in the season – a 2-1 win against Chelsea and a 2-1 win at Leicester – suggested that there was good reason to believe in a new age at St Mary’s.
But on Friday evening, Ralph Hasenhuttl only started one of those eight outfield players – defender Armel Bella-Kotchap. Romeo Lavia was injured, and would surely have started if fit, but Duje Caleta-Car, Joe Aribo, Sekou Mara, Samuel Edozie and Juan Larios were all on the bench and Ainsley Maitland-Niles wasn’t in the matchday squad. The same was roughly true against Wolves, when Aribo and Bella-Kotchap were the only two in the team.
That’s perfectly reasonable. If you sign a collection of players at peak age, you might put them all in the team. When the group that arrives are all young, a manager needs to be careful. Start them en masse and you risk losing any cohesion and damaging their development.
Unfortunately for Hasenhuttl, his club and their supporters may respectfully disagree. The reason those players were signed was because Southampton were awful towards the end of last season. Southampton’s results in their last two matches, 1-0 defeats during which they managed two shots on target in total, makes the case that leaving several of those players on the bench was a bad mistake.
It also piles the pressure on Southampton’s upcoming games and on Hasenhuttl’s team selection. If he isn’t going to trust the new players, his seniors may reason, we’ll get a manager who is.
Tottenham
Honestly, Tottenham aren’t playing that well. The league table may lie, Spurs unbeaten and level with Manchester City in second. Saturday’s result may lie, the first time that Spurs have scored six in the league since thrashing Manchester United at Old Trafford in 2020. But the eyes don’t lie.
In the first half against Leicester, Spurs looked like a team of component parts. The central midfielders were harried and frequently ceded possession in dangerous areas. The direct passes forward didn’t work because Son Heung-min wasn’t there to run beyond the last man and Richarlison didn’t win a header. The defence worked fairly well but then Davinson Sanchez committed a stupid foul in the box.
Hat-trick
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) September 17, 2022
Heropic.twitter.com/l4EPsgSHW7
Of course, it didn’t matter, and the fact that it didn’t matter is a cause for great celebration. Antonio Conte wanted strength in depth so that he could a) demand more from his starters, b) he could rotate when he didn’t get more from them and c) so Tottenham could overpower teams through the use of substitutions. Son clearly wasn’t happy about being dropped, but if the net result is that he comes on to score a hat-trick and sends a message to Conte not to leave him out again, everyone’s a winner.
The power of individuality that is powering Tottenham forward is surprising because it goes against everything we knew about Conte. His team are currently being bailed out by Hugo Lloris and the brilliance of two or more of their forwards. Conte may not like that because it suggests that the team are not quite functioning as a collective.
But that may change over time and, in the meantime, Tottenham are making it work. The north London derby will tell us exactly where Spurs are at, but if you have a group of superstar attackers that can wriggle themselves out of mediocrity and onto emphatic victories, nobody moans.
West Ham
It might not be David Moyes’ biggest problem given that West Ham have taken nine points from their last 13 league games either side of the season break, but what on earth has happened to Jarrod Bowen? Bowen was called up by Gareth Southgate last week to have another look at him following England’s June fixtures, but if this club form continues he has no hope of going to the World Cup.
In 625 minutes over seven league games this season, Bowen has neither scored nor assisted a goal. He has taken 15 shots and only one has required a save from the goalkeeper. He has only dribbled past a player six times. He has created only seven chances. All of these are down significantly on the first half of last season. Is Bowen tired, or have defenders just worked him out?
Wolves
The temptation is to focus on the defensive shambles that made life far too easy for the best attack in the Premier League: Goncalo Guedes failing to track Kevin De Bruyne, Jack Grealish making an unchecked run to score, the gaping space between the centre-backs for Erling Haaland’s finish, Nathan Collins’ madness that ended the game as a contest and gives Bruno Lage a headache for Wolves’ next three fixtures. Loaning out Conor Coady left Lage badly short at centre-back; Yerson Mosquera may have to step in.
But the bigger question surrounds Wolves’ front three and how they expect to score goals. Raul Jimenez’s thigh problem and Sasa Kalajdzic’s season-ending injury provoked the free transfer signing of Diego Costa, but he was not fit to start. Anyone expecting a repeat of Costa’s physical brilliance from his Chelsea years should think again.
Lage has seemingly decided that Hwang Hee-chan is not fit for his purpose. Even without Jimenez, Kalajdzic and Costa, Hwang was left on the bench and only had seven touches of the ball in his 20-minute appearance. That signing has just not worked out.
Instead, Lage went for a front three of attacking midfielders with Daniel Podence nominally the central forward. That made some sense given how much Wolves have previously given City problems on the counter attack, but it didn’t really work. Wolves did threaten on the break, but too often they were undone by having several creators and no finisher.
Wolves had one touch of the ball in the penalty area and between the width of the posts in 90 minutes on Saturday; that was Guedes’ shot in the 59th minute. Even if Costa is not the same player, they are desperate for a focal point that can afford the attacking midfielders behind him some space.
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