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For the first time in the Premier League era, we have five unbeaten teams after four games. Manchester City still lead the way (obviously), but Arsenal beat Manchester United to keep up the pace while reports of Liverpool’s demise may have been greatly exaggerated. And who are the other clubs on 10 points? Tottenham and West Ham, obviously.
Chelsea continue to dance with chaos, losing 1-0 at home to Nottingham Forest, who are now in the top half despite travelling to Stamford Bridge, Old Trafford and the Emirates in their first four games.
At the bottom, this is the first time in Premier League history that all three promoted clubs have reached this stage and taken only a single point between them. It is beginning to look a little daunting for Luton, while Sheffield United need Cameron Archer to keep scoring and scoring…
Read i‘s analysis on every team below (listed in table order).
This weekend’s results
Friday
- Luton 1-2 West Ham
Saturday
- Sheff Utd 2-2 Everton
- Brentford 2-2 Bournemouth
- Burnley 2-5 Tottenham
- Chelsea 0-1 Nottingham Forest
- Man City 5-1 Fulham
- Brighton 3-1 Newcastle
Sunday
- Crystal Palace 3-2 Wolves
- Liverpool 3-0 Aston Villa
- Arsenal 3-1 Man Utd
Man City
One of the interesting progressions of Manchester City under Pep Guardiola has been their shift away from a team that wants to have drastically high shot numbers. In 2019-20, City ranked first for shots and had 121 more than any other team. During the next two seasons, they ranked second for shots (both times behind Liverpool). Last year, they dropped to third behind Liverpool and Brighton.
However, nobody scored with a higher percentage of their shots than City. Guardiola’s point, that he repeatedly makes to his players, is that a shot doesn’t mean anything unless it comes with a purpose. That was his problem with the interpretation of tiki-taka; he does not want to pass your team to death, but to pass with intention. Without purpose, there is nothing.
So far this season, Manchester City rank seventh for shots per game. But against Fulham, they scored five goals from seven shots. Guardiola is increasingly making them more efficient with their shooting as a means of preserving energy because the workload will be the same this season, the squad is smaller and the accumulated fatigue will be greater.
Premier League table
Tottenham
I saw some Tottenham supporters on Saturday evening claiming that the early weeks of this season are proof that their team is better without Harry Kane in it. I think that’s probably just a stage in the cycle of grief. Kane weaved miracles in spite of what was behind him. He would have killed for a functional midfield with an in-form Yves Bissouma at its head, or James Maddison creating chances.
Still, you watch this team and you understand why you might come to that erroneous conclusion. With Son Heung-min as the No 9 with licence to stay on the last defender if he wants, Tottenham were ruthless on the counter. Whereas Richarlison appeared deeply frustrated to be starved of the ball (a characteristic of the centre forward in Ange Postecoglou’s Celtic teams too), Son doesn’t mind. He had 27 touches and scored three goals.
Most importantly, it’s the sense of fun that is driving everything more than Kane’s departure. On Saturday, Tottenham had 10 shots on target in an away league game for the first time since May 2022 (the final day against Norwich). The fans are asking for attacking, quick football and they have a manager who seems to want to deliver it. It’ll never catch on.
More than Son, it’s Destiny Udogie who personifies this Tottenham shift. Last October, two months after he had signed from Udinese but been loaned back, Udogie said in an interview that Spurs manager Antonio Conte had still not spoken to him. That was the kind of hands-on, arm-around-the-shoulder management that came to define Conte’s tenure.
Now Udogie is back, feeling loved, in the team and the in-form full-back in the Premier League. The key is this, for Udogie and Tottenham’s players in general: they are not enjoying themselves because they are not making errors; they are enjoying themselves because they know that they will make errors but will not be harangued for them.
Liverpool
One of the weird elements of social media football fan tribalism is that there are pockets of hate that exist towards those who you would assume would be loved. In fact, it comes down to this: club over player. These supporters purport to love their club so much that any player who is unlucky enough to be out of form is the subject of scorn and vilification. None of these people, we should say, would actually go to games and boo these players.
Joe Gomez is the latest to suffer this treatment. When he was linked with a move away in the summer, Twitter was littered with “fans” saying that Gomez wasn’t good enough and should be sold. In fact, he stayed and was called into action after Virgil van Dijk’s red card against Newcastle.
Gomez is not the perfect defender. He has suffered a fall from grace and most of that has come at Anfield in front of the people who he wants to let down least. But he was composed against Aston Villa, has excellent recovery pace and is capable of switching over to right-back when required, as when Trent Alexander-Arnold was substituted. These players don’t deserve hatred if things go wrong. If you really want to support your team, support them.
West Ham
West Ham have become the “defensive actions” champions. They have made 133 tackles and interceptions, comfortably the most in the Premier League. David Moyes loves hard work and this team is working hard.
What’s interesting is how those defensive actions are being spread out. Last season, too often Declan Rice’s teammates seemed to assume that Rice would do the dirty work. West Ham also invited pressure a little more, leaving that work to Rice. In terms of defensive actions (tackles plus interceptions) amongst attack-minded players, Lucas Paqueta (3.64 per 90) and Pablo Fornals (2.63 per 90) were the top two.
Now pressing is more of a team effort and is coming higher up the pitch. It is a small-ish sample size, but Paqueta is recording tackles or interceptions at a rate of 6.15 per 90 minutes, with Fornals at 4.15. Rice may have left, but it seems to have made the attacking midfielders more proactive without the ball.
This makes a difference deeper in the pitch. James Ward-Prowse and Edson Alvarez, who will be the first-choice combination this season, can operate a little higher up the pitch because they know that pressing work is being done in front of them. When they do win the ball back, they can spark attacking transitions rather than playing slow, sideways passes.
Arsenal
For roughly 90 minutes, the Emirates witnessed baking sunshine and an even, tense and occasionally feisty contest between two flawed teams. One was not quite what it recently was, the other not quite where it wants to be. But Arsenal signed Declan Rice this summer and Manchester United signed Jonny Evans. So perhaps, though the margins were infinitesimal, it was always going to fall this way.
On the touchline, after the defining moment of the game, both managers offered stereotypical, hyperbolic glimpses of their own psyche. Mikel Arteta danced and jumped and span on the spot as Declan Rice’s shot hit a Manchester United leg, a Manchester United glove and then a Manchester United net, like a lottery winner who has found out the news in the street on his own.
Arsenal will rejoice because that is their right. For much of the first half this fixture simmered and flashed and threatened to prove little more than why Manchester City will probably win the league at a canter. But last season they broke Manchester United in stoppage time and this season they did it twice. Given Southampton, Aston Villa, and Bournemouth were all foiled after the 90th minute, all also in 2023, perhaps Erik ten Hag should have expected the extra pressure.
Arsenal seem to currently exist between wanting to simply replicate last season and feeling the need to adapt from it. Arteta finally moved away from his defensive funkiness to playing round pegs in round holes – White, Gabriel, Saliba, Zinchenko – and the existing parts of the 2022-23 attack flourished.
But the Havertz problem isn’t going anyway and any attempts to ignore it will only make it worse. Most of us, from amateur level upwards, know the grim inevitability of ball sports whereby the more out of form you are, the more chances fate grants for you to prove recovery or further ruin.
Havertz’s notable work on Sunday: one magnificent air kick and one misplaced pass that, inevitably, acted as an assist for Manchester United’s goal. Long before then, Arsenal supporters tried to applaud doubly loud every time Havertz sprinted back or played a clever touch. It felt accidentally patronising. This is a £65m Germany international who needs to offer a little more and quickly.
But then that is the power of the victory, and whether it be deserved or otherwise is not noted in the scorebook. It will say only this: Arsenal won by two goals. Arsenal are still unbeaten. Arsenal are one of four clubs tucked in behind Manchester City and will consider themselves the likeliest challengers again. Over-analysis is for the vanquished. Fine margins occasionally yield cavernous end results.
Brighton
“He can become big, big, big – he can become the top scorer in Europe.”
Roberto De Zerbi is prone to the odd hyperbolic tendency, particularly in the heat of the moment post-game, but he’s absolutely right not to put any ceiling on the potential of Evan Ferguson. If the advice would be not to place too much pressure on young shoulders, De Zerbi is avoiding that by easing his striker into Premier League life. Ferguson has started 12 Premier League games.
At 18, he already feels like he’s been around a while because he immediately looked so fit for Premier League purpose. On Saturday he became the fourth youngest player to score a Premier League hattrick.
And he can do the lot. Ferguson is tall enough to win headers. He’s powerful enough to push his own cause with seasoned defenders. His finishing – of all types – has been faintly ludicrous since he stepped up: ten goals from 49 shots is a record that any high-level striker would take.
Ferguson also finds space magnificently. Given his frame, you might expect him to operate solely in the penalty area and wait for crosses, but in this Brighton playing style you need to do more. So he drops deep to pick up pockets of space, either interchanging play or just driving forward and taking a shot. The obvious conclusion is this: there is going to be an almighty scramble to pay £100m for Ferguson next summer, if things continue this way.
Crystal Palace
Only once in the whole of last season did Crystal Palace play with a front two, a 1-1 draw at Brentford when they set up as a 4-4-2. Because of the sheer number of attacking midfielders they possessed last season, and the comparative paucity of their centre forward options, they packed the midfield and operated with a single striker. That’s something they have done from the start in every league game this season.
But against Wolves on Sunday, Palace looked brighter and more breezy when Jean-Philippe Mateta came on for Jeffrey Schlupp. Mateta assisted Eberechi Eze’s goal with the smart use of his back. He assisted Odsonne Edouard’s second goal too. The pair looked excellent in combination with Eze floating behind them.
More fool us for ever trying to offer advice to Roy Hodgson, but you wonder whether, with the departure of Wilfried Zaha and the absence of Michael Olise, Palace could change shape and operate with two strikers, at least for their home games. If nothing else, it is a potentially excellent Plan B.
Brentford
From last week:
“Brentford have avoided defeat in each of their opening three league games, so there’s no reason for anger, but it sticks in the throat when you have watched your team dominate in the first half without taking full advantage and then see them punished for that profligacy after the break.”
Well make that four, because Brentford really are committing to their bit. They took the lead on Saturday, hit the woodwork three times (including an outrageous Keane Lewis-Potter miss) and then promptly let Bournemouth back into the match. Brentford have lost one of their last 18 league games, so nobody is moaning. But it could have been so much better.
Still, Brentford saved themselves because of their other obvious habit. Since their first season in the Premier League, they have scored 12 goals in the 90th minute or later. That’s a total beaten only by Brighton and Manchester City.
Nottingham Forest
Do not underestimate how important this away win is. Last season, Nottingham Forest had the worst away record of any Premier League club. They did not win on the road until 4 January and kept one away clean sheet before then. The one win was at Southampton, who finished bottom. This is a game changer.
There will be a great deal of pressure upon Steve Cooper this season. Evangelos Marinakis has not signed 13 new players (albeit at a relatively low net spend cost) to be happy with finishing 17th in 2023-24, even if that would be perfectly respectable for a newly promoted club who have undergone an awful lot of change. He is an ambitious owner and Cooper must match that if he wants to stick around.
Over the first few weeks of this season, some grumbling from sections of the club’s support (albeit largely online) about how Cooper is stymieing the attack. They underestimate how hard it is to manage a large group of players, some of whom know that they will likely be replaced soon.
All the while, he’s trying to refine the playing style to make them more dangerous on the counter without compromising on the defence. It isn’t just that Forest beat Chelsea, but that they did it Cooper’s way: Battling off the ball, defensively organised, occasionally quick in transition and picking their moments to press high and win the ball.
There will be a lot of change within this first team over the next month or so, inevitable when you make seven ambitious deadline day signings. The majority of those arrivals strengthened Forest in central defence and central midfield. With that in mind, it’s hard not to be delighted for Ryan Yates, Joe Worrall and Scott McKenna, the only survivors in the team on Saturday from the Championship. McKenna in particular has come in for criticism from those supporters who do not seem to care about what lambasting players does to the mood. Each of them will not give up their place without a fight.
Worrall in particular deserves our praise. This week, police officer Graham Saville lost his life in Balderton, Nottinghamshire while trying to save the life of a man at a level crossing. Saville was Worrall’s uncle and he was incredibly close to his nephew. After the game, Cooper spoke about Worrall’s strength and spirit, his determination to come into training and to make a difference at Stamford Bridge. If you wanted proof of why this academy lad has made it to the status of Premier League captain, there it is.
Aston Villa
Unai Emery is a fantastic coach, but already twice this season we have seen one of the tactical flaws in his setup. Against Newcastle on the opening weekend, Villa operated with a high defensive line and a high press. There is a logic to this: if you are able to put pressure on your opponent in their own defensive third, they can quickly feel like they are being swamped with players and just never gain momentum.
But if that opponent is able to pass around your pressure, either because you are a bit off the pace or because they are exceptional at doing so, that high line can be exposed by passes either over the top and out wide, or slide-rule and through the middle, all to quick forwards. On that opening weekend, Villa lost 5-1.
And on Sunday at Anfield, Villa lost 3-0 and it would have been far worse if Liverpool had made the most of their overlaps in the second half. Again, there was a logic to the plan: Liverpool have looked vulnerable against aggressive pressing, most notably against Newcastle during the first half last weekend. But Villa were piecemeal and therefore the high line was tactical suicide. Emery is going to have to work on a Plan B against the best teams away from home, or there is a very obvious ceiling on their potential this season.
Man Utd
As Declan Rice scored, Ten Hag stood motionless with his “This is the last thing we wanted to happen” thousand-yard stare, before stomping back to his bench. After the game, Manchester United’s manager railed against a series of perceived injustices that nobody bar the foolishly partisan could agree with. That reflects his anger at losing on a coin toss, but also on the lack of progress and control at the start of this season.
In flickers, you can see what Ten Hag wants this team to be. Andre Onana has enjoyed an odd few weeks of shot-stopping, twice sat on the floor by onrushing forwards, but there may be no modern goalkeeper more different to David de Gea. The passing under pressure is almost always spot on.
And yet – and this may draw deep frowns from those more tactically astute than yours truly – United were at their best when playing on the counter. That is where the goal came from, Christian Eriksen intercepting Kai Havertz’s pass and setting Marcus Rashford free. That is how the offside goal happened too, United undone by a centimetre or two.
So why is it, if United are so effective on the counter, have two rapid wide forwards, have one central midfielder who excels at winning the ball (Casemiro) and another who excels at springing passes forward (Eriksen), they spend so long playing the ball slowly around their penalty box and have so much possession? If this is simply a trick to lull teams into a false sense of security, it seems a remarkably proactive strategy for a starting XI that cost the best part of half a billion pounds.
If this is the plan, particularly away from home, those who travel England’s length and breadth must be looking forward to it clicking. Manchester United have won three away league games in 2023. Two of them were against clubs enjoying their first season after promotion from the Championship. The other was against a club quickly heading back there. By no measure is that good enough. You don’t get to blame everyone else for that.
Chelsea
Turns out that beating Luton and AFC Wimbledon was the full extent of Chelsea’s recovery after taking one point from their opening two league games. On Saturday, bad old Chelsea again: lots of the ball but without much idea to do with it; shots taken from speculative areas and the chances that are created spurned because they still, after spending a billion pounds, don’t have a high-class, peak age centre forward.
But then what do you expect? You sign so many players in such a short space of time and they will struggle to acclimatise, and then – because you are supposedly an elite club – the pressure builds and you risk them all constantly having to play catch-up and becoming mentally exhausted in the process. You have a policy of exclusively signing young players and then you wonder why they are inconsistent, within the same game and over a longer run. You pluck players out of systems and then wonder why they struggle without one – Moises Caicedo has been at fault for two goals so far and looks lost.
What Chelsea really need is to be able to pause time. Stop all the clocks, take two years off and just work with a group of players in the interim who will be flourishing as a collective when the two years are up. Unfortunately, that can’t happen because even chummy American billionaires can’t buy time machines.
Chelsea needed all these new signings to work out because their master plan of amortisation is only ever a short-term solution for successful signings (only eight more years of paying off the Mykhailo Mudryk deal, guys!). And now they need them all to work even more because Chelsea spent the final weeks of the transfer window selling all their academy talent to make the books balance. I’ve no idea why anyone serious would have taken on this job.
Fulham
Since he joined the club last summer, Fulham have played the following league matches without Joao Palhinha in the team:
Lost 1-4 vs Newcastle
Lost 2-3 vs Brentford
Lost 0-3 vs Fulham
Won 1-0 vs Everton
Lost 0-3 vs Brentford
Lost 1-5 vs Man City
For fans of basic arithmetic, that’s a record of a goal conceded for every 30 minutes played without their all-tackling, all-blocking, all-action midfielder. We make the point because of how close Palhinha came to a move on deadline day. He passed his medicals at Bayern Munich and had even had his promotional photographs taken before Fulham pulled the plug and called him back because they couldn’t source a replacement (and had probably gauged the angry reaction of supporters).
How Palhinha responds to this is key, given that Aleksandar Mitrovic kicked up a fuss and eventually forced his own move to Saudi Arabia (and their window remains open, remember). He doesn’t seem the type of personality to go on strike, but news that Palhinha had removed all references to Fulham on his social media profile, even changing the photo to him in a Portugal tracksuit, isn’t an ideal start. Fulham need him more than they needed Mitrovic.
Newcastle
There’s no reason to panic yet, although we don’t yet know how Newcastle United’s Saudi owners will react to disappointment because, until now, there has been none. Newcastle have lost away at Manchester City and Brighton and at home to Liverpool; they only took one point from those fixtures last season and that worked out okay.
There has also been an inevitable reversion to the mean, probably psychological because Newcastle’s players had the high of last season and know that there will be an increased workload in the Champions League. It only takes a drop of one or two per cent for results to suffer.
But, more specifically, there is a problem in central midfield. In the first half of last season, Bruno Guimaraes was one of the highest-performing No 8s in Europe because he had licence to push forward and the responsibility for being the central ball carrier. This summer, Newcastle signed Sandro Tonali who, on early evidence, is doing exactly the same thing. Tonali is playing better than Bruno, and thus making him look bad. But the problem is that they are operating the same role in similar spaces.
That has left Newcastle very prone to the counter attack when they lose possession (Liverpool’s second goal last weekend is a fine example) because their only defensive midfielder is Joelinton and, well, he isn’t a No 6. Some of these issues will be ironed out and they may not even matter against lower-class opponents, but right now Newcastle have a problem with the amount of space in front of their defence with Tonali and Bruno ahead of the ball.
This also raises questions of Newcastle’s transfer business. Nobody is doubting that Tino Livramento and Lewis Hall aren’t potentially brilliant full-backs who could form part of the club’s long-term future. But Newcastle ended last season with most supporters saying that they needed central defensive cover and a defensive midfielder. They spent £32m on a (for now) backup right-back to Kieran Trippier, £55m on a player in the same position as Bruno and bought nobody in those two problem areas.
Wolves
Gary O’Neil does seem to get more decisions right than wrong, and the arrival of another central midfielder in Jean-Ricner Bellegarde may allow him to make the necessary changes, but Wolves’ manager seemed to be leaving his central midfielders exposed on Sunday with his 4-2-4 formation.
Pablo Sarabia is a lovely bloke, but should he be working here – he was eventually removed for Hwang. On the other wing, Pedro Neto is excellent (and got two assists with his crosses into the box), but both are allowed to stay so high up the pitch that, in midfield, Mario Lemina and Joao Gomes have a lot of space to cover. Lemina managed five tackles and three interceptions against Palace, but they were still swamped when Palace brought on the extra attacker.
The obvious answer is to play with either Matheus Cunha or Fabio Silva but not both, keep the other two attacking players on and play with a midfield three. If not, opposition managers are going to focus their pressing on Wolves’ two central midfielders and then try to drag them out of position when they win the ball. Four attackers in this team just feels like one too many.
Bournemouth
Straight to Andoni Iraola’s post-match comments, because they reflected everything we know about this new Bournemouth era so far:
“It was a game where anything could happen” – that is becoming increasingly true for every Bournemouth game, something we predicted at the start of the season. They could have been 3-0 up at Anfield but lost against ten men. They could have been 3-0 down to Brentford, ended up leading and then didn’t win. Even in the EFL Cup in midweek they trailed, then led, then got pegged back and then won the game in the last minute. Embrace the chaos.
“They were pushing a lot and we finished the game pretty tired” – Bournemouth’s players are going to have to get used to a high-pressing style – employed by neither of the last two managers – pretty quickly. That will take work in training, but it is a little concerning just how knackered certain players look in the final 15 minutes of the match, given that Iraola had a full preseason and it is only September.
“We were conceding too much space” – agreed, and that will ultimately determine how this works out. For all that Iraola is trying to overhaul the playing style, it is hard because he is working with a weaker midfield than last season until Alex Scott and Tyler Adams are fit. Against teams who are used to playing through a slightly haphazard press, they will concede goals until everyone is available.
“The worst thing for us is the way we conceded the goal – it comes from our own goal-kick” – and that’s the final point to make here. Bournemouth spent £110m this summer on transfer fees, but none of them were central defenders. They have two new, young full-backs, two new central midfielders to bed in (in the team and alongside each other) and their central defenders (Marcos Senesi and Ilyan Zabarni – 26 and 21) had started two games together before this season (the final two games of 2022-23, both defeats).
The point is this: there is a lot to learn by inexperienced players and Bournemouth have a difficult fixture list. This may not get better for a while, but there is faith that, when the lesser opponents come along in October, Iraola will have a team ready to play his way.
Sheffield United
Cameron Archer was Sheffield United’s hail Mary pass. Their owners have chosen to be parsimonious this summer, but you cannot survive a season with Oli McBurnie plus two academy strikers as your penalty-box options. They chose to spend £18m on a centre forward who had played 72 top-flight minutes.
And they may have found the perfect option. Archer is a striker who can make something out of little. See his debut for details: 21 touches, only three touches in the penalty area (beaten or equalled by four teammates), a goal and an assist thanks to Jordan Pickford’s head. If they are to have a chance at staying up, Archer will need to score 12-15 goals.
The surprise is not that Sheffield United took the chance on Archer, but that nobody else did. Every other Premier League club was seemingly looking for goals over the summer. Archer scored 11 goals in 19 Championship starts and has six U21 goals despite starting three games.
Everton
“We are our worst enemy as a team sometimes, it’s something we have to learn on as a team,” said Jordan Pickford after Everton’s fourth winless league game of the season. “We were getting done on silly basics where we should be doing better because a lot of our performance was correct,” concurred Sean Dyche.
And this is deeply disturbing. Everton have played Sheffield United, Fulham and Wolves in three of their first four matches (two of them at home) and have taken a single point. This team is not good enough, this club is not resilient enough, to throw away golden tickets that can be traded in for victories. The games will get harder soon.
But there are also, finally, genuine signs of life in Everton’s attack. Beto can be an excellent line-leader, even if he is unlikely to be prolific in the Premier League – Dominic Calvert-Lewin has a chance to get fit on his terms without being rushed back. They have a collection of wingers who can swap positions, dribble, create and cross: Jack Harrison, Dwight McNeil, Arnaut Danjuma.
And they’re going to need to lead this team. At Burnley, Dyche’s sides were always platformed by an excellent defence. This summer, Everton signed four attackers, 38-year-old Ashley Young, loaned out Mason Holgate and lost Yerry Mina. The defensive options have got worse and they haven’t kept a clean sheet in their five games so far. Dyche’s free-flowing attackers save the day; miracles never cease.
Luton
Luton’s best chance of staying up will be their home atmosphere (and no, there’s no way of saying that without coming across as incredibly patronising). The first home game back brought forward all the cliches that they will rely upon: supporters close to the pitch; raucous, celebratory atmosphere; FA Cup fourth round game on the BBC-style occasion that can drag down a higher-quality opponent; feisty, direct football.
It almost worked against West Ham. Luton did pull their opponent towards them with chaotic midfield play and longer balls. Both sides were slack in midfield and failed to make connections in the final third, but Luton will take that. But then Luton also lost out in the moments: Ryan Giles lost Jarrod Bowen for the header and Kurt Zouma was left embarrassingly unmarked from a corner.
I think this strategy could yield plenty of points if Luton had a high-energy, tenacious midfield three. But, whilst Marvelous Nakamba fits that brief, Ross Barkley looks short of match fitness and is a passing, roaming central midfielder. Tahith Chong has the potential, but lacks a little physicality for the top flight and was repeatedly nudged off the ball against West Ham. These are two forward-thinking midfielders and they’re leaving Nakamba exposed. They’re also not really servicing the centre forwards because they’re being overrun.
Rob Edwards knows a lot more than me, but I wonder if Luton might shift from the 3-5-2/5-3-2 to a 3-4-2-1. It might sound like a minor tweak, but if you sacrificed a striker (probably Elijah Adebayo, who has only had three shots so far this season) for another defensive midfielder (Albert Sambi Lokonga has joined on loan from Arsenal), you could allow Barkley and Chong to stay higher up the pitch and give the defence more protection with the wing-backs providing the width.
Burnley
Are Burnley in a bit of a pickle? Three league games played, three defeats and 11 goals conceded. That’s as many games as Burnley lost in the league during the whole of last season. The instant retort is to point out that Burnley have played Manchester City, Aston Villa and Tottenham in their first three games; fair point. But Vincent Kompany says that his team have to get better quickly and intimated that the step up has been bigger than a few in his squad might have believed.
We wondered how Burnley might react tactically after promotion, given their dominance over possession and territory and their free-flowing attacking last season. Kompany’s answer seems to be perseverance with the same strategy. And Burnley are creating chances – 31 shots in three games against difficult opponents.
But that attacking intent comes at a cost. The biggest differences between the Premier League and Championship are the manner in which opponents are able to exploit your vulnerabilities and the speed of transition after possession is won/lost. These are Burnley’s problems. They have been cut open on counter-attacks repeatedly and, so far, have no response.
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