The Score is Daniel Storey’s weekly verdict on all 20 Premier League teams’ performances. Sign up here to receive the free newsletter every Monday morning
Arsenal have reached the 50-point mark in the Premier League at the halfway stage of the season after overcoming a significant test against Manchester United.
That 3-2 win on Sunday, secured thanks to a stoppage-time winner from Eddie Nketiah, ensured that the Gunners restored their five-point lead at the top of the table after Manchester City had beaten Wolves 3-0 after yet another Erling Haaland hat-trick earlier on in the day.
Newcastle’s recent profligacy in front of goal continued at Selhurst Park, with Liverpool and Chelsea also drawing blanks, while David Moyes came out victorious against Frank Lampard in “El Sackico” at the London Stadium.
Fulham and Tottenham round off this weekend’s fixtures at Craven Cottage on Monday night.
This weekend’s results
Saturday 21 January
Bournemouth 1-1 Nottingham Forest
Leicester 2-2 Brighton
Southampton 0-1 Aston Villa
Crystal Palace 0-0 Newcastle
Sunday 22 January
Leeds 0-0 Brentford
Monday 23 January
Fulham vs Spurs
Arsenal
Unpopular Arsenal opinion, framed as a question to make people a little less angry: what if having a poacher like Eddie Nketiah makes this Arsenal team better than when Gabriel Jesus is in it?
Firstly, that’s not to lambast Jesus, who played a vital role in Arsenal’s tremendous start to the season and offers more than Nketiah in terms of tracking back and chance creation. But I refuse to believe that Jesus would have taken those two chances (or, alternatively, been in a position to take them) against Manchester United. He prefers a starting position on the left of the box. Nketiah found space on the right and finished both impressively.
And Arsenal need that poacher just as much as the creator. Jesus has scored five goals from 61 shots this season. Nketiah has scored nine from 57 shots and might just have won the most important fixture of Arsenal’s season so far.
NKETIAH IS THE MAN OF THE MOMENT!
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) January 22, 2023
Arsenal make it 3-2! pic.twitter.com/jn0cvKvWdY
It’s not like Nketiah isn’t also very capable of running the channels and holding up the ball. There was a moment in the first half where he outpaced Raphaël Varane on the chase, held off the central defender and then played the ball to Martin Odegaard to continue the attack. These are the actions of a mature, selfless, clever striker, not a young man with fewer than 20 Premier League starts before this season.
I’ll happily concede that I didn’t think he was quite up to this task yet. The Emirates Stadium chanting “Eddie, Eddie, Eddie” on repeat probably answers that question.
Aston Villa
If Unai Emery has revitalised Aston Villa’s season in double quick time there is no secret as to which two players have been most key. Of the seven league games since the end of August that Douglas Luiz and Boubacar Kamara have started in combination, Villa have won four, drawn two (one against Manchester City) and lost one (to Liverpool).
We’re not saying that Steven Gerrard would still be in a job if Kamara had not got injured – because he made far too many other mistakes – but he was absent for all of Gerrard’s last four games and they took only two points.
They are a brilliant pairing. Last season, when Villa most often used a midfield three of John McGinn, Jacob Ramsey and Luiz, the Brazilian was nominally the holding midfielder and certainly had to rein in some attacking intentions. But with Kamara next to him, Luiz has a licence to go forward. He’s always been more of a No 8 than a No 6.
You can see this play out in the numbers. Kamara, a brilliant signing, has made the most tackles of any Villa player and also the most clearances. It isn’t that Luiz isn’t making tackles, but that he’s doing so further up the pitch to give an extra layer of protection and a higher press. Then when Villa win the ball, Luiz is well-placed to play progressive passes. He has created 23 chances to Luiz’s four.
It works brilliantly because two excellent midfielders are playing in their natural positions, are having fun doing it and are guided by an experienced and proficient manager. And until you get your central midfield combinations right, any progress will be built on sand.
Bournemouth
Bournemouth led 3-1 against Leeds and lost 4-3. They led 2-0 against Tottenham and lost 3-2. They led by one goal against Fulham and now Forest and won neither game. There are certainly reasonable doubts about whether this Bournemouth squad is good enough to stay up without significant overachievement, but they have put themselves in dominant positions often enough that they could feasibly be in midtable.
And I don’t think that comes down to the quality of the players, but Gary O’Neil’s tendency to try and sit on a lead despite mounting evidence that it doesn’t work. It’s something we mentioned after the Tottenham defeat, but the moment Bournemouth move back towards their own goal, they invite trouble.
Saturday’s game was the perfect example. On first glance, Bournemouth were unfortunate not to win the game because they created several good chances before and after Jaidon Anthony’s goal and the quick wingers, full-backs and midfielders (Anthony, Dango Ouattara, Jordan Zemura, Ryan Christie) all had joy.
But then, around the hour mark, O’Neil either instructed those wide players to drop deep and become auxiliary defenders, or they did it of their own accord and the manager did not address it. Suddenly Kieffer Moore was left very isolated, unable to hold up the ball and Steve Cooper could make attacking substitutions without fear of being caught out. From the 60th minute onwards, Forest had 10 shots. From a position of dominance, Bournemouth were probably lucky to take a point.
From the 75th minute onwards, Forest had 65 per cent possession compared to 43 per cent in the first 15 minutes of the game. There is no issue with Bournemouth sacrificing possession when they have a lead, but that can only happen if they are prepared to develop quick counter attacks. Otherwise, they are simple asking for trouble.
Brentford
A 0-0 draw without too many causes for hot takes, so let’s give some love to David Raya. Brentford’s Spanish goalkeeper has been linked with moves to Tottenham and Manchester United this summer (so Chelsea will probably make a bid too). There’s a simple reason for that: he’s so damn dependable.
Last season, Brentford kept nine clean sheets as a promoted club, largely down to Raya’s consistency. He had a save percentage second only to Jose Sa at Wolves, at 77.7 per cent; Brentford could have finished higher still were it not for his injury.
This season, his save percentage is 76.8 per cent. The defenders have changed in front of him but nothing else changes. At 27, Raya is a long-term option for any number of clubs.
Brighton
Until further notice, this is a Kaoru Mitoma Ultras official club. Don’t expect any further updates to the contrary because he’s the best player to watch in the league at the moment and that’s not even close to being melodramatic.
Mitoma is joint 21st in the Premier League for dribbles attempted, which is wonderful fun because he’s only started seven matches. Adjust it for minutes played and he’s third behind Allan Saint-Maximin and Said Benrahma. But then Mitoma completes a higher percentage of his dribbles. Quick explainer: he runs at right-backs every time he gets the ball and there’s nothing they can do to stop him.
Stunning from Kaoru!
— Brighton & Hove Albion (@OfficialBHAFC) January 21, 2023@BrightonTools
pic.twitter.com/KwCWQwfYyN
Until recently, Mitoma was just a winger. He took four shots in all competitions before the World Cup. Now he’s a wide forward who had four shots in one game against Liverpool last weekend. He’s also had 31 touches in the penalty area across his last five league games and has apparently been hiding the fact that he can pop curled shots from outside the box into the top corner.
If you made a rough scattergraph with “Give him the ball, lads” along the x-axis and “Well what is there left to say about Player A” on the y-axis, Mitoma would be squeezed into the top right-hand corner. Just like that shot past Danny Ward.
Chelsea
On the back of Liverpool’s matchday programme, written in small, capitalised grey letters underneath the names of Chelsea’s players, were six words: “Squads correct at time of print.” As inadvertent digs at Todd Boehly’s scattergun transfer approach goes, it was a doozy.
You can see the point, intended or otherwise. Chelsea have spent £440m since the beginning of the summer and completed six signings in the last three weeks, yet Graham Potter’s team is a mishmash of conflicting ideals and strategies. Potter had already warned that his club couldn’t simply keep buying players without it becoming counterproductive. Cue the arrival of Noni Madueke on Friday. Chelsea’s manager could pick a team of wide attacking midfielders.
Everybody loves an attacking wide player; no arguments there. But when you watch Chelsea, it becomes immediately obvious that they need a centre forward who can either hold up the ball while these other forwards under and overlap him, or a striker to finish chances. Kai Havertz is a fine talent, but he is emphatically not a centre forward.
That, more than the money spent, is the baffling aspect of this transfer policy. Chelsea’s attacking options who aren’t centre forwards: Havertz, Sterling, Mudryk, Pulisic, Ziyech, Madueke, Felix, Nkunku (on the way), David Fofana. Chelsea’s attacking options who are centre forwards: Romelu Lukaku (out on loan), Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (apparently free to leave), Armando Broja (very injured and possibly not good enough).
Crystal Palace
So far this season, Crystal Palace have started 14 Premier League games with one of Odsonne Edouard, Jean-Philippe Mateta or Jordan Ayew as their central striker but those three players have scored five league goals between them. Because of that lack of prolificacy, Patrick Vieira moved Wilfried Zaha to play as the centre forward, which works fairly well but evidently removes his dribbling ability from deep.
So, you surmise, they should buy a striker in this transfer window and move Zaha back to the wing. Except that Palace have basically done exactly this in each of the last five years and it hasn’t worked.
In 2018, they signed Alexander Sorloth (no goals in 16 league games). In 2019, they signed Michy Batshuayi (a comparatively respectable seven in 29). In 2020, they signed Cenk Tosun (one in five games!). Then in 2021, they signed Mateta on loan and made it permanent the following January (seven in 45 games).
Is this destined to be Palace’s life forever? They go out and sign a striker in this window (let’s say Viktor Gyokeres from Coventry), that striker takes a while to settle, works hard but never scores enough goals for that hard work to be the headline and then we meet again here in a year’s time.
Everton
We knew that Everton were a club crumbling into the dust. We knew that this team was better than Frank Lampard was making them look and we expected them to lose against West Ham because we expect them to lose most games until a new manager – and, just maybe, a new mood – comes into the club. We knew that the relationship between every stakeholder of this club had broken down, a sea of mistrust and mistakes.
But in those scenarios, as players, you have to do your bit. At full-time at the London Stadium, most Everton players went straight down the tunnel. There were a few exceptions who did move towards the away end to recognise their support, but even some of them turned back more than 40 yards from the fans.
If that was a reaction to the events of last weekend, when some players were stopped and asked to explain themselves, that is only more proof of a broken club. But those supporters earn an awful lot less money than you do and they have travelled a couple of hundred miles to watch you lose again and they will travel a couple of hundred miles home again. They are used to these trips: Everton have won two away league games since August 2021.
In those circumstances, your disappointment is inevitable. But by thanking those away fans for their support, even if they are not universally appreciative of your efforts, is one way to at least try and repair some damage. Head straight down the tunnel and it looks like you don’t care even when you clearly do.
Fulham
Play against Tottenham on Monday evening.
Leeds
One of the odder aspects of Leeds’ season is how one of two of the players specifically bought because they fit the profile of a Jesse Marsch player have tailed off after bright starts. The most obvious example is Brenden Aaronson.
In the early weeks of the season, Aaronson was one of the league’s most exciting players. He drifted into space, ran at opposition defenders and seemed to gauge the demands of the league. His work rate was exceptional. On the opening weekend against Wolves (Leeds’ last home league win) he was a menace, dashing around to rob opponents of the ball and sprinting forwards and back whole Marsch applauded. When substituted, Elland Road rose as one to offer their appreciation.
So what’s happened? Aaronson now looks shorn of confidence and is getting involved far less in Leeds’ attacks, but the weirdest thing is how easily he’s now being wrestled off the ball and his diminished defensive returns. Aaronson made two or more tackles in each of his first four Premier League games. He’s made six in total over his last seven matches. Like plenty in Leeds’ midfield, it all just looks so much harder than it needs to be.
Leicester
A quick cut-out-and-keep mantra for Brendan Rodgers: We must not sit back and try and defend a lead in the last 10 minutes because it doesn’t work. Leicester were fortunate to be ahead against Brighton, who dominated play for large periods and really should have had a penalty for Luke Thomas’ trip on Danny Welbeck. But the key to staying up is making the most of the good fortune that slides your way.
Instead, Leicester sat back and, almost immediately, Wout Faes and Daniel Amartey looked jumpy. Faes has a tendency to “do a Soyuncu”, namely sprint out from defence to attempt a tackle that he doesn’t need to make. Amartey looked fairly solid but was clearly made more nervous by his team inviting pressure he could not cope with.
This is becoming a theme. On the opening weekend, Leicester invited Brentford onto them and ceded a two-goal lead. A fortnight later they invited Southampton onto them and a 1-0 lead became defeat. Then in October they invited Bournemouth onto them and a 1-0 lead became 2-1 defeat.
Leicester have conceded more goals from the 81st minute onwards than any other team. That record in the final 10 minutes (scored once, conceded seven) is proof enough that a strategic change is needed.
Liverpool
Watching Liverpool used to be fun. Win or lose, there was joy in the experience as risks were taken and endeavour burst out of every pore. That is the great shame of this season. Not the dropped points or missed opportunities, but the loss of alluring innocence in Liverpool’s football. They have no contractual obligation to entertain, but you at least used to believe in its possibility.
There are hallmarks of decline everywhere you care to look. After 15 minutes, Andrew Robertson stood over a throw-in close to the halfway line. For 15 or 20 seconds, he scanned around for options and found none. Red-shirted figures were moving but never quite fully offering themselves to receive the ball. At which point Robertson attempted a long throw that went straight to Kai Havertz.
In defence, enough panic to suggest that centre-backs were playing in an isolated patch of ice. Joe Gomez dithered and dallied; Ibrahima Konate and Alisson seemed intent on playing without verbal communication. It manifested itself best from set-piece situations, when Chelsea players found inexplicable gaps but were unable to capitalise. Blushes were spared by a VAR intervention after less than two minutes. Virgil van Dijk’s absence offers only a part explanation.
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We move further up the pitch (although Liverpool were often unable to). What happened more often: a pass played straight into touch, a player taking four touches when two might have done or Cody Gakpo shooting over the bar from a presentable position?
That was the overriding feeling of Saturday lunchtime’s game: disorganised hopefulness. It is not that these two clubs are not trying. It isn’t that they do not possess the individual players to concoct something fabulous. It is that these two managers, one newly arrived and one managing the 1,000th match of his career, are out to prove that they can take their clubs into a new era.
Those sorts of plans are best made in private, but that is not an option in football. Liverpool are battling for what has quickly been lost on the wind, grasping at their recent history as supporters fear it may be drifting out of reach. It’s not pretty to watch.
Man City
Let’s get this straight, because there was a little revisionism from a few on Sunday: the point was never that Manchester City would be better without Erling Haaland in the team. The point was that Haaland is so damn efficient with his shooting that, when opponents stopped City servicing him or they played too slow to give him space, the team struggled because other players had subconsciously been tricked into thinking that they didn’t need to contribute goals.
But when City are able to give Haaland service (or, as happened on Sunday, opposition teams make mistakes to give him time and space), the numbers are absolutely extraordinary. Haaland has now bettered the goals total by the top Premier League goalscorer in each of the last four seasons and he’s started 18 matches.
As for the efficiency: it’s obscene. During that magical 2017-18 season when Mohamed Salah scored 32 league goals, he took 142 shots in total to give him a goals-to-shots ratio of 0.22 goals per shot; let’s use that as the benchmark. So far this season, Haaland has a goals-to-shots ratio of 0.35. This is like nothing we have seen over the past decade.
Man Utd
A brilliant game and a valiant effort without Casemiro, but a defeat engineered by two defensive mistakes that cost Manchester United two goals (and a fine point):
1) Aaron Wan Bissaka is an excellent one-on-one defender because he is capable of standing up a winger, matching them for pace and has a knack of winning the ball in tackles that make you wince because you think that he’s going to give away a penalty.
Wan Bissaka’s weakness, however, is when defending at the back post. He has a tendency to switch off and not spot the runner in his peripheral vision, who then steals a march. The suspicion was that Gabriel Martinelli might have joy doing that but, actually, the mistake came from a set piece. As Arsenal played a short corner routine out and then back in again, Nketiah hung back and then darted in front of Wan Bissaka. United’s full-back barely left the ground as Nketiah scored the header.
2) It isn’t David De Gea’s biggest problem when negotiating to keep his current salary and stay at Manchester United, and it does not detract from a brilliant curled shot from Bukayo Saka, but there’s a flaw in De Gea’s technique that means he cannot attempt a full-length dive and save.
Watch the replay from behind Saka. Just before he shoots, De Gea takes a small jump into the air. It’s probably subconscious, but the idea is that when he lands back on his feet it allows him to “bounce” and push off with greater power.
The problem comes because Saka takes his shot early. Watch how far the ball has travelled before De Gea lands back on his feet and then dives. It might only be a fraction of a second, but Saka’s shot has probably travelled three or four yards. Were De Gea on the balls of his feet, he could have made the customary move to shift slightly to his right, then dive and perhaps get a glove on the shot.
Newcastle
Given the club’s unlikely league position, the focus should remain on Newcastle’s exceptional defence. Eddie Howe’s side have conceded two goals in their last 11 games and 11 goals all season. Sven Botman hasn’t lost a Premier League game he’s played yet, something he shares with me (admittedly, he’s played more games than my nought).
But Howe will be a little concerned at how quickly Newcastle’s goals have dried up. They have now scored once in their last four matches, the late, late winner that prevents their current streak from being described as a sticky patch. Cue some writers and supporters getting a little itchy about investment in January.
There’s a pretty easy explanation for the current scoreless run: reversion to the mean. Newcastle are the club whose total number of goals scored best matches their expected goals total. Earlier in the season, when they were scoring three against Manchester City, four against Southampton and five against Brentford, Newcastle were overperforming their xG. Miguel Almiron scored in all three of those games and had a run where everything he touched turned to goals.
That run wasn’t sustainable, but instead, Newcastle have lurched in the opposite direction: 60 shots in those four scoreless matches with an xG of 5.8. They’re missing lots of half chances, probably failing to create quite as many clear cut opportunities and those who were in great goalscoring form are not quite firing in the same way.
Nottingham Forest
The weekend was saved in the final quarter of Saturday’s 3pm kick offs. At one point, Southampton had taken the lead against Aston Villa (subsequently disallowed), Leicester were beating Brighton and Forest were losing to Bournemouth. The gap to the bottom two has been extended to six points and the gap to Bournemouth maintained.
Still, this was a step backwards. Forest certainly dominated the last 15 minutes (see Bournemouth section for details), but they could feasibly have been three goals down at half-time against a side who hadn’t scored for weeks and hadn’t won for longer.
I wonder if the issue was an unfamiliarity with possession. Steve Cooper has been vocal about his demands that Forest are more proactive away from home, where they have routinely been poor in stark contrast to excellent, energetic home performances. Doing that might mean having more of the ball and that’s going to take some getting used to.
Forest’s possession totals over their previous five-game run (Palace, Man Utd, Chelsea, Southampton and Leicester), during which they took 10 points, were 32, 35, 29, 37 and 39. Against Bournemouth, Forest averaged 57 per cent possession.
After the first 15 minutes, Bournemouth seemed to work out to give them more of the ball and then expose the gaps when the full-backs pushed forwards if they could counter at speed. That is the balance that Cooper must get right.
Southampton
Nathan Jones had come so far in such a short space of time. He’d got the away win from behind to deflect some of the most stinging criticism. He’d demonstrated that his team could ruffle the feathers of a big club. He’d won his first league game in charge against a relegation rival. All that was left was the home win. And now the optimism is washed away by the tide.
Southampton’s home form is clinically dismal. They have taken six points at St Mary’s, the lowest number of home points of any club. They have not kept a clean sheet at home since April against Arsenal, a victory that feels so long ago that Jason Dodd might as well have been playing at right-back. Not all of that is on Jones, clearly, but he has now faced Brighton, Forest and Villa at home and not collected a single point.
This was a marginal defeat, no doubt. The vigour of the Manchester City win wasn’t quite apparent and one effect of James Ward-Prowse pushing up the pitch is that Southampton do look quite easy to pass through, but Southampton were denied a goal by VAR that would have changed the game entirely. It was probably the right call; it was also a punch to the gut.
Unfortunately, Southampton’s position is fragile enough that marginal defeats offer little comfort. They play Bournemouth, Wolves, Leicester and Crystal Palace at home between now and the final day. They’re probably going to have to win at least three of those four to stay up.
Tottenham
Play against Fulham on Monday evening.
West Ham
This is what the supporters have asked for. Saturday was by no means perfect, and West Ham scored just after the point when those fans were getting a little grumpy, but there were at least signs of attacking life.
This isn’t about touches in the penalty area, you understand. West Ham are actually pretty good at that and only had 20 touches in Everton’s area on Saturday (fewer than in 11 of their other league games this season). But, crucially, it’s the how, why and when of those touches. For both goals, West Ham actually had players making late runs into the penalty area rather than static players waiting for the ball because the move had taken so long to formulate.
Both of Jarrod Bowen’s goals had an element of fortune: blind flick-on and tight offside and then a deflected cross. But that’s exactly the point. If you make late runs into the penalty area, putting attackers in dangerous areas and making them difficult to mark, you’ll get lucky.
Bowen is something of the bellwether player here. Since the beginning of October, in the league defeats Bowen has started he has averaged 3.4 penalty-box touches per match. During the four league games West Ham have won over that period, Bowen has averaged six penalty-box touches. It’s all about the movement – now do it against a team that isn’t broken in two.
Wolves
Last week, this column discussed how Wolves would be committed to passing out from the back under Julen Lopetegui. This week, after Jose Sa played a disastrous pass to Riyad Mahrez for Manchester City’s third goal, it’s worth analysing Sa’s role in this strategy.
Firstly, Sa was expected to pass the ball short under Bruno Lage too. But under Lage, Sa was also encouraged to go long (6.1 passes of 40 yards or more per 90 minutes vs 4.8 this season). Those long passes became a weapon in Wolves’ armoury: Sa created three passes and got an assist last season.
Now, that option appears to have been curbed by Lopetegui. The percentage of passes a goalkeeper attempts of more than 40 yards (how often they go long) has dropped very quickly. In the three games immediately prior to the World Cup, it was between 50 and 60 per cent in each game. In Wolves’ three games before Sunday, that long pass percentage was 14, 30 and 36. And now look at the total number of passes completed in those two sets of three matches: 39 vs 88. Wolves will play it short, and they will do it repeatedly.
Which is something that Sa is going to have to learn without repeating the mistake against Manchester City. A message will have gone around the Premier League: press Sa hard and block off his passing lanes and you might be able to force a free shot while he learns on the job.
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