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. Daniel was away this weekend so i‘s team of football writers have put The Score together in his stead…
This weekend’s results
Saturday 1 April
- Man City 4-1 Liverpool
- Arsenal 4-1 Leeds
- Bournemouth 2-1 Fulham
- Brighton 3-3 Brentford
- Crystal Palace 2-1 Leicester
- Nottingham Forest 1-1 Wolves
- Chelsea 0-2 Aston Villa
Sunday 2 April
- West Ham 1-0 Southampton
- Newcastle 2-0 Man Utd
Arsenal
When asked how he’s helped Granit Xhaka, who hasn’t scored more than one goal in each of the past three seasons, score in three consecutive games, Mikel Arteta replied: “When you think you’re going to score, you score.
“When you score one, you believe the next game you’re going to score. When you score the next game, you’re going to believe you can score again.”
What Arteta give players is a self-assurance that they are the little engines that can. They are talented, they are special, they have nice eyes. He’ll sort the rest. It has taken time to convince them of these facts, but now he has, that belief is unstoppable.
This is why Arsenal can do the things they can in the face of all logic. How Manchester City’s back-ups can become title winners. How the Emirates crowd can learn to trust again, hope again. How last-minute winners have become commonplace. Faith provides a confidence that everything will be okay, and Arteta is a man who instils faith.
This explains how a side can lose their best player to illness and almost seamlessly adapt. Before the Leeds win, Arsenal ranked 18th in the Premier League for proportion of attacks down the left-hand side. Without Bukayo Saka, suddenly playing down the left was all they knew.
From the energy of the Emirates crowd to the players in the dressing room, Arteta has forged a self-sustaining synergy. Martin Odegaard has just two goals and two assists in his last 10 Premier League games, after five goals and four assists in the eight before those. No matter, because Martinelli will just replace his output, with six goals and an assist in his last seven games, having not scored for the six matches before that.
Gabriel Jesus misses 14 games due to injury? Suddenly Eddie Nketiah, a player regularly derided as Championship-quality, is scoring a last-minute winner against Manchester United. When Jesus is resurrected? A brace and a player-of-the-match performance.
Leandro Trossard joins as a back-up, and suddenly has as many assists as Newcastle have goals in 2023. Centre-back Ben White now has two goals in four league games as the first-choice right-back. William Saliba, perhaps the league’s form centre-back this season, gets injured? Rob Holding and his new lion’s mane are producing lion-hearted performances.
Every time this Arsenal side are brilliant it further vindicates the faith and confidence Arteta has inspired in the players and fans.
And so the cult of Arteta continues. Faith in his genius has inspired Arsenal up to this point, and that belief has only strengthened. In a way, we are all part of Arsenal’s procession towards the title, whether we like it or not. Mikel has decreed it, and it is so. GS
Aston Villa
Throw any idea of Aston Villa “stealing” three points at Stamford Bridge out the window. Chelsea may have had 27 shots, their most this season, but few were concerning.
Besides, the back line that Tyrone Mings marshalled on Saturday defended for their lives, and he more than anyone epitomises the transformative nature of Unai Emery’s work at Villa Park.
You could imagine if Aston Villa were to go 2-0 up under Steven Gerrard, those lapses of concentration would almost certainly undo their hard work. The simple mistakes and inadequate defending of that time would make sure of it.
Those deficiencies have been replaced with intensity, sheer hard work, and at times, a bit of luck. That luck being Mykhailo Mudryk and the entire Chelsea squad’s inability to put the ball past Emi Martinez.
Ollie Watkins is another one feeling the Emery effects. The 27-year-old, by no means a hot prospect anymore, became the first Aston Villa player to score in five consecutive Premier League matches away from home following his goal at Stamford Bridge – a tidy chip over Kepa after Watkins latched onto a misplaced header from Marc Cucurella.
Man of match John McGinn stood above all, however. His strike to extend Villa’s lead was beautiful, and he was the heart of their midfield going forward and backwards, running and tackling immensely around a scrambled Chelsea side. If Enzo Fernandez is priced at £106m, then how much is John McGinn worth? RJ
Bournemouth
In nearly every other season, moving out of the relegation zone to go 15th would be seen as an emphatic swing but this is a concertinaed, smoke and mirrors table, where 15th still means clinging to the cliff edge. Everton were there, after the Sean Dyche upswing and so, after their win at Wolves, were Leeds.
Nevertheless, when you have won three games in more than four months each win deserves to be relished and this was the sort of game where the preview and the review of the match seem remarkably similar. Beforehand, it was pointed out that Dominic Solanke had scored in each of his previous three meetings with Fulham, which is the sort of sequence that disappears the moment you mention it. Solanke duly made it four out of four. The winner was his first in the Premier League since November but he does not score wasted goals. His four league goals this season have earned Bournemouth five points.
As Bournemouth attempt to scramble up the cliff face, there is one statistic that should concern them. No team which has conceded most goals has ever survived in the Premier League and in that table Bournemouth are comfortably bottom. The last club to stay up with the division’s worst defensive record was Crystal Palace in 1990. Since that was during a season in which they conceded nine at Anfield – Bournemouth, who did just that in August – might consider it an omen. TR
Brentford
When you have spent six months in treatment rooms and gyms thinking about returning to the side you captain, this is almost the comeback Pontus Jansson would have imagined. But for a late penalty, Jansson’s headed opening goal would have propelled Brentford into sixth.
Nevertheless, the 32-year-old coped admirably against a Brighton side that has failed to score at home just once since October. There were plenty of arched eyebrows in Yorkshire when in 2019 he chose Brentford after falling out with the Leeds manager, Marcelo Bielsa. That decision has been justified and now there is another to be made: whether to extend a contract that expires in the summer. On this evidence, the omens look good. TR
Brighton
Perhaps no player quite sums up Brighton as much as Kaoru Mitoma, whose opening goal against Brentford was his eighth since the Premier League returned after the World Cup. Having been signed for £2.5m from Kawasaki Frontale, the forward is now valued at £40m.
Given the dismal returns on Japanese footballers in the Premier League, Mitoma was more of a gamble than most of the signings sanctioned by the club’s owner Tony Bloom. Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsène Wenger and Jürgen Klopp all experimented with Japanese players but the returns from Shinji Kagawa, Ryo Miyaichi and Takumi Minamino were hardly encouraging.
Yet the way in which Mitoma took his goal, lobbing the Brentford keeper, David Raya, spoke of a man brimming with confidence. He said afterwards he was now “expected to score”, something that was rarely said of Kagawa, Minamino and Miyaichi – who despite Wenger’s strong links with Japan did not start a Premier League game for Arsenal.
Nevertheless, although Mitoma played a leading part in Saturday’s most thrilling match, there will be part of Bloom who sees this as two points dropped, despite the relief of the last-minute equaliser. As a professional gambler, he would recognise that a team which enjoys 72 per cent possession with 33 shots at goal should take more than just a point. TR
Chelsea
Defeat to Aston Villa was a good representation of Graham Potter’s short time at Chelsea. A curious teamsheet and peculiar selections bereft of tactical coherence. Players out of position whilst a lopsided squad of pricey talent and veterans failed to blend, resulting in a coach with a very muddled brain, and a target on his back.
What it was, more than a representation, was Potter’s final game in charge of Chelsea, as the club gave in to the ever-growing calls for Potter’s resignation, and sacked the former Brighton coach on Sunday evening.
It was one final reminder that Potter, for all the potential he showed on the south coast, isn’t at the elite level yet, and certainly doesn’t have the requisite tools to handle the turbulence of Stamford Bridge’s revolving doors.
But whilst Potter’s inadequacies may become the prevailing narrative, it isn’t the full story, and two things can be true at once. Potter may not be good enough yet, but it doesn’t matter, because Chelsea FC are a club in dire need of a strategic overhaul as they begin the search for their third manager of the season.
Abramovich, Boehly, whoever, as long as they continue to believe that the sole problem is the coach, then they’ll never solve the problem. RJ
Crystal Palace
When it was announced last week that Crystal Palace – the park rather than the club – had won a £5m National Lottery grant to repair its dinosaur statues, it provoked a wry smile. In a few days, the Hodgosaurus would once more be roaming its favourite natural habitat at Selhurst Park.
Palace’s dismissal of Patrick Vieira and his replacement by the 75-year-old Roy Hodgson was the Premier League’s eighth managerial sacking of the season and one of the most ridiculed. Vieira seemed part of a long-term plan. Hodgson appeared a short-sighted panic measure by the club’s owner, Steve Parish.
Of the seven previous changes, only Southampton’s replacement of Ralf Hasenhüttl by the out-of-his-depth Nathan Jones appears an obviously disastrous move – and after Jean-Philippe Mateta’s late winner at the Holmesdale End, Hodgson’s return is likely to follow that pattern. The jury has yet to return a verdict on Thomas Tuchel’s firing by Chelsea, although if Bayern Munich win the Champions League, they might vote for the death penalty.
What Crystal Palace’s victory over Leicester made clear was that Hodgson has no intention of scrambling his way to safety point-by-chiselled-out point. He employed three strikers, giving Eberechi Eze his first start in nearly a month. He was repaid with a sometimes thrilling display. In the first half Palace averaged a shot on goal every two-and-a-half minutes. He may be in the salvage business but Hodgson is no Sam Allardyce.
The loss of their leading scorer, Wilfried Zaha, might give Palace pause for thought but with 30 points and nine games to play it seems hard to imagine Crystal Palace being relegated. Which might suggest Parish has made his point with impressive speed – or that the dismissal of Vieira was rather premature. TR
Everton
Playing Tottenham on Monday night.
Fulham
There used to be a phrase that by the time April came around, quite a few clubs would be “on the beach”. With nothing much to play for and with no danger of relegation, their footballers’ main motivation was not to be injured for the summer holidays.
Maybe it is the number of European places available or the travel chaos surrounding British ports, but Fulham appear to be one of only two clubs – Aston Villa are the other – who are genuinely mid-table. So are Chelsea but given the financial crisis that will accompany their lack of Champions League football, it can hardly be said they have nothing to play for.
For the second, successive match Fulham took the lead, controlled the game and lost, 2-1. Unlike in the FA Cup quarter-final at Manchester United, they did not have two men and their manager sent off. That is a progress of sorts.
As at Old Trafford, there was plenty to admire in Fulham’s first-half display at Bournemouth. They took the lead, struck the crossbar and played with a swagger before losing momentum after the break. Bournemouth were fighting for their Premier League lives, Fulham had the motivation of surpassing a top-flight record of six away wins last achieved in the 1961-62 season.
There is a considerable difference and, given Fulham’s next three opponents are West Ham, Everton and Leeds, it is an equation Marco Silva’s men are likely to face again. TR
Leicester
When a 6-2 defeat at Tottenham last September left Leicester with one point from seven games, one argument for not sacking Brendan Rodgers was that his contract was so lucrative that it would cost the club too much to fire their manager.
After taking one point from their last six games, there was a realisation that keeping Rodgers now might prove far more expensive.
Bad beginnings matter. Of the 10 clubs that have started a season as badly as Leicester, only one – Southampton in 1998-99 – has survived without a change of manager.
No club is in worse form and this season no club has lost more points from winning positions than the 22 Leicester have tossed away.
In the wake of Saturday’s defeat at Crystal Palace after taking a 1-0 lead, Rodgers asked for a change of mentality among his players. With a critical night at home to Aston Villa on Tuesday, they have an opportunity to make an immediate response, even if Rodgers won’t be around to see it.
Leeds
It’s a common misconception that playing a midfielder up front suddenly makes them a false nine. Javi Gracia deployed Brenden Aaronson as a lone forward against Arsenal, hoping the young forward could provide both defensive steel and attacking flair in the half-nine/half-10 position that Harry Kane has come to epitomise.
Instead, Aaronson did neither job properly and Leeds were left without a focal point their counter-attacks desperately needed. Rodrigo, Patrick Bamford and record signing Georginio Rutter all came off the bench to little avail. Gracia will need to decide which he trusts for their crucial run-in.
Although injuries restricted the Spaniard’s selection, especially the absences of Wilfried Gnonto, Max Wober and Tyler Adams, his choice of starting eleven was still baffling. Five defenders, three wingers and just two recognised midfielders – Aaronson up front and Marc Roca in the middle – took to the pitch in a lopsided 4-3-3.
Leeds clearly intended to sit back as a default and counter when possible, yet unfamiliar positions and untested on-pitch relationships meant solidity was hard to come by. There were some positives to take from their visit to the Emirates – Crysencio Summerville was particularly dangerous on the counter – but the fragility which has haunted them all season still lingers.
Leeds now hover just one point above the relegation zone, and face Nottingham Forest and a seemingly rejuvenated Crystal Palace in their next two games. They still have Leicester, Bournemouth and West Ham to come too. Those five games will be crucial to their survival, not a visit to the likely league leaders, but Gracia still needs to decide his best eleven and pick a starting striker if the Whites are going to stay up. GS
Liverpool
In the aftermath of the St Anfield’s Day Massacre, more level-headed Liverpool fans were not getting too carried away. Humiliating Manchester United was all well and good, but had they really turned the corner?
Now we know. The path back to the top remains steep, treacherous in places and, at this stage, simply unnavigable. Liverpool must start again, the timing of which could not be worse.
Manchester City can do to teams what they did on Saturday. They probably will do so again this season. Being a willing accomplice is not a place you would expect Liverpool to be in, however.
Their decline cannot solely be pinned on an under-strengthened, aging midfield, as many supporters have tried to do. Jude Bellingham alone won’t solve anything, it is far worse than that.
To a man at the Etihad, big-name players, who went within a hair’s breadth of an unprecedented quadruple last season, were a shadow of their former selves. Not just in terms of quality, but in their willingness and desire to even be first to the ball.
Jurgen Klopp has tried to put a brave face on defeat after defeat this season, but there was no hiding from the inferiority he had just witnessed at the Etihad. Asked whether Rodri should have been sent off in the first half, he conceded: “I don’t think we would have won against 10 men.” He’s not wrong.
It will be Klopp that leads a revival, of that there can be no doubt. A big summer of difficult decisions awaits, but deciding who must be sacrificed for the greater good is not something that can wait that long. Liverpool, in the state they are in, aren’t going to be undergoing any renaissance any time soon. Planning must begin in earnest. PH
Man City
Losing a 42-goal striker should do harm to a side’s chances of winning pivotal football matches, but without Erling Haaland, Manchester City ended up being an even more frightening prospect, as ludicrous as that sounds.
It helps that in a sea of perfectly spherical pegs slotting seamlessly into round holes, Pep Guardiola has edged another of his superstars to unparalleled, unrelenting City levels.
Jack Grealish has divided a fanbase since arriving in Manchester two summers ago. Did City even need him? Where would he fit? No such doubts linger anymore, not after his best display in a blue shirt ensuring the gap between the champions and Liverpool opened into a chasm on Saturday.
It was breathless to watch. There were last ditch tackles, running the full length of the pitch to deny Mohamed Salah, brilliant link up play with standard-bearer Kevin De Bruyne, while registering a superb goal, to go with an earlier assist, that his all-action display warranted. To say Grealish earned his post-match amalgamation of Chinese dishes mixed into one large bowl is an understatement.
“The first season at City is not easy,” Bernardo Silva said. “For me it wasn’t simple. Not easy for Riyad [Mahrez]. Sometimes it takes time. Now Jack is doing well and I’m really happy for him – he deserves it.”
As usual, City are hitting top gear just at the right time. De Bruyne looks hungrier than ever, Julian Alvarez put in a Guardiola dream of a false nine display against a Liverpool side who just could not pick him up all day, while Haaland will just do what he does.
Grealish is now in that bracket of gamechangers and is living his best life, with the full backing of his manager. Seeing a player who has put up with so much scrutiny, unfairly so at times, beaming from ear to ear, fulfilling their potential, is rather infectious. PH
Man Utd
Take Erling Haaland out of Manchester City’s side and they cope. Gabriel Jesus can spend the best part of two months on the sidelines and Arsenal continue to prosper.
But the loss of Casemiro continues to scramble the circuits of Manchester United like nothing else.
Take Sunday afternoon at St James’ Park. The same opponents and the same challenge that they faced at Wembley a month ago but without their Brazilian talisman they were blown apart by a Newcastle side they kept firmly at arm’s length in the Carabao Cup final.
Marcel Sabitzer looked every inch the cut-price stop gap he is while Scott McTominay, ferocious for Scotland in midweek, was cut down to size by the non-stop energy of Sean Longstaff.
No team with pretensions of challenging for the title in short order should be diminished so much by the absence of one player.
It represents a stark reminder that for all Erik ten Hag’s sterling rebuilding work, and with one or two notable exceptions, this is a Manchester United side still short on personality and poise. MD
Newcastle
Gareth Southgate’s recent lament about a surfeit of English talent to pick from will not elicit much sympathy on Tyneside.
Newcastle don’t have a single nailed on England starter but six of Newcastle’s Sunday team are eligible for England and three more potential call ups – Anthony Gordon, Elliot Anderson and Callum Wilson – stepped off the bench to shore up a statement win against Manchester United. A club on the up and picking English players regularly surely can’t be ignored much longer.
Southgate knows all about Nick Pope, Wilson and Kieran Trippier but match winner Joe Willock is quietly assembling a case based on a series of performances of real authority for a team that sit third in the Premier League table. A glaring first half miss aside, he has that happy knack of arriving in dangerous areas at just the right time.
Dan Burn, Sean Longstaff and Jacob Murphy don’t have a cap between them but are typical of the vast improvement Eddie Howe has squeezed out of his squad. The exciting Anderson, who Scotland tried to pick for their senior side last month, is primed for a breakout season next year.
The England manager is a disciple of Terry Venables’ belief that being dropped from a squad should be as difficult as getting called into one but to ignore what’s playing out on Tyneside would be perverse. MD
Nottingham Forest
The most shocking revelation from the annual report of fees paid to agents was that Nottingham Forest, who have approached transfer windows like a trolley dash since their promotion, should be bottom of the table, having spent a mere £4.3m.
Forest paid nothing for Brennan Johnson, who joined the club at the age of eight. Given he had missed Wales’ European Championship qualifiers, his manager, Steve Cooper, ran a risk in playing him. The coolness with which he took the opening goal at the City Ground was further justification in the faith placed in the 21-year-old.
Like Leicester, Nottingham Forest have become adept at not converting leads into wins and Saturday against Wolves was no exception. On Tuesday they face Leeds, who like them have spilled 15 points from winning positions. At Elland Road, something has got to give.
This will be a doubly-important evening for Nottingham Forest, given the nature of their run-in, which includes Manchester United, Liverpool, Brighton, Brentford, Chelsea and Arsenal. Some of those teams are less than what they used to be and some are more but each one of those fixtures appears fraught with danger. TR
Southampton
A late header from substitute Paul Onuachu could have rescued a point for Southampton, but they would hardly have deserved it. As a team who have often benefited from free kicks, they got their marking all wrong from the decisive set play after 25 minutes, and were often indebted to goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu as West Ham profited from gaps as Saints were forced to come forward. But they were so lightweight in attack in the absence of the injured Che Adams and you wonder where the money they have spent since last summer’s transfer window opened – an estimated £80m – went. It was certainly not obvious on the field.
They remain 20th but somehow are still beyond salvation. Although they face Manchester City at home and Arsenal and Newcastle away in their next six games, their opponents also include Crystal Palace and Bournemouth at St Mary’s and Nottingham Forest on the road. NS
Tottenham
Playing Everton on Monday night.
West Ham
West Ham struggled for any fluency early on but played things safe – too safe for an impatient crowd at times – before taking the lead. After that they minimised the scares and could have added to their lead, although a late header against the bar had their hearts in their mouths.
Making the most of chances that fell their way would have made those last few minutes far more comfortable. On the other hand, once again they were lethargic and you wonder whether their European campaign has taken too much out of them.
But the three points gave them the morale-boost of a jump out of the bottom three and up to 14th place. They host Newcastle on Wednesday before Saturday’s trip to Fulham and then home and away games against Gent sandwich a visit from Arsenal. So a return of between two and four points from this week’s games are a must. NS
Wolves
Before making the short journey to Nottingham, the Wolves manager, Julen Lopetegui called on his team to control their emotions at the City Ground in the wake of a spiteful League Cup quarter final between the two sides. He then saw his assistant, Pablo Sanz, sent off for his involvement in a ferocious argument with the Forest bench, while Daniel Podence, who scored the Wolves equaliser, faces an investigation for spitting at Brennan Johnson.
There were some who obeyed their manager’s instructions rather better. Selecting Toti Gomes at left back was an adventurous selection given he had not started a game since before the World Cup. There were a few anxious moments against Johnson but Toti acquitted himself well. The risk of fielding Ruben Neves, who was a booking away from suspension, did not work so well. A yellow card means he will miss the next two games.
In truth, Wolves did not play well and have not been playing well. Afterwards, Lopetegui said the club now faces “nine finals” to stay up. Given Wolves have not won a final since beating Sheffield United in the play-offs 20 years ago, that was a bold statement. TR
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