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Do we have a proper title race? After Liverpool avoided defeat at the Etihad and Arsenal won at Brentford, there is a sense of something special building this season in the Premier League, at least until Manchester City win 10 straight games to start next year.
Tottenham Hotspur’s injury-affected sticky run goes on, but that means Aston Villa are now in the top four. If that’s surprising, what about Manchester United as the division’s form team and only six points from the top.
At the bottom, Burnley and Sheffield United took major steps backwards at home, while Luton and Bournemouth followed a good week – Everton’s points deduction – with crucial wins.
This weekend’s results
Saturday
- Man City 1-1 Liverpool
- Burnley 1-2 West Ham
- Luton 2-1 Crystal Palace
- Newcastle 4-1 Chelsea
- Nottingham Forest 2-3 Brighton
- Sheff Utd 1-3 Bournemouth
- Brentford 0-1 Arsenal
Sunday
Read my analysis on every team below (listed in table order).
Arsenal
Last season, Arsenal established themselves as the most watchable club in the Premier League, a team playing with liberty and expression in the pursuit of something that they couldn’t quite comprehend. When that grand prize loomed into view, they seemed, understandably, to be a little spooked by its magnitude.
This season, particularly away from home, Arsenal are a different beast. In 2022-23, they were the highest away goalscorers in the league. This season, they have scored nine goals in six away games and four of those were at Bournemouth. Not all of this is deliberate. Arsenal look stodgier this season, with Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli facing double coverage more often than not and Martin Odegaard falling far short of his previous heights.
But in those circumstances, a team must find new ways to win. We’re still in November and Arsenal have won three away league games at lesser opponents (Crystal Palace, Everton, Brentford) during which they have been forced to dig deep. The battling with 10 men at Selhurst Park, the decisive substitutions at Goodison Park and the late winner at the Gtech Community Stadium.
That is why Mikel Arteta was so animated at full-time. When the going gets tough, you need the faith of your supporters. That faith relies upon trust in the manager to get the biggest calls right.
The two biggest calls that Arteta made over the summer was to sign Kai Havertz and to change his goalkeepers. Aaron Ramsdale wobbled, but Arsenal kept a clean sheet. Havertz has been bitterly disappointing this season, but finally scored from open play.
And so the belief builds again. Arsenal are different, no doubt about that. They are not sprinting from the front and into the middle distance. But none of that necessarily means that they are worse.
Man City
I hope you enjoy listening to the world’s smallest violin being played, but Manchester City currently have an issue with their squad depth. Since the start of summer 2022, they have sold Cole Palmer, Riyad Mahrez, Ilkay Gundogan, Raheem Sterling, Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko, all of whom can play in central midfield or further forward.
Those sales did all make sense, but with Kevin De Bruyne injured, Jack Grealish out with illness and Matheus Nunes picking up a knock on international duty, their first-team squad is extraordinarily thin in attacking areas for a side that will wish to compete deep on three fronts. The bench on Saturday contained two goalkeepers, a backup left-back, a central defender, another half-fit central defender, a defensive midfielder who will leave soon or next summer, a forward with seven senior career appearances and Rico Lewis.
I’m not saying that it decided the course of the match – City were by far the better team in the first half and were deeply wasteful – but Liverpool’s used substitutes were Luis Diaz, Cody Gakpo, Ryan Gravenberch, Harvey Elliott and Wataru Endo (Joe Gomez and Ibrahima Konate were unused) while Pep Guardiola chose not to make a substitution. If this season becomes a nip-and-tuck type of title race and De Bruyne is not fit until after Christmas, who has the stronger depth?
Liverpool
We wondered whether Liverpool might collapse in the arena where they had suffered so many setbacks to render a title challenge overly optimistic before it had really been launched in style, and that didn’t happen. There was even heartening resilience and a come-from-behind point that leaves Liverpool further forward than when they started.
It’s therefore going to sound a little churlish to moan that it could have been better, but: it could have been better. There is great value to Darwin Nunez as an agent of chaos. If he doesn’t quite know what he’s going to do next, how can any defender be expected to guess right more than 50 per cent of the time? That enables Liverpool’s air of fluidity and attacking intrigue.
There are also moments when you want an £85m striker to be calm rather than chaotic; that’s the but.
Jurgen Klopp had to 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧 Darwin Nunez from Pep Guardiola at full time
— Optus Sport (@OptusSport) November 25, 2023
Tensions spill over after tonight's huge Premier League top of the table clash…#OptusSport #PL pic.twitter.com/wcvc1LHlyd
Just like last season, Nunez is taking shots at a ludicrous rate. He is on 5.12 per 90 minutes and no other player has more than 3.9. Firstly, he often takes those shots from overly ambitious positions. Secondly, he is underperforming his expected goals total because he has a wonderful tendency to miss the chances you think he will finish and score the ones you think he will miss.
This isn’t criticism per se, and is an emphatic compliment from the neutral spectator’s point of view. Nunez is brilliant and he’s brilliant to watch. But there must be times when he makes Jurgen Klopp laugh with frustration at his own inability to be predictable.
Aston Villa
Aston Villa are too good now, under Unai Emery, to not pick apart a team with injuries and suspensions. They are plenty chaotic enough themselves, of course. At one point during the second half, Emery waved his hands down to try and calm down his players with such ferocity that you suspected that he might begin to hover half a foot from the grass. You have to admire the effort, but there are times when all you can do is submit to the madness and hope that your team finds a way.
Villa usually find a way, but on Sunday it became a certainty once Rodrigo Bentancur went off. They were virtually full-strength and thus precisely the weapons that Tottenham didn’t: a central striker in irrepressible form in Ollie Watkins (who had so much space for the second goal), a midfield capable of control as well as chaos because John McGinn and Boubacar Kamara, a magnificent central defensive combination in both boxes and options on the bench that Tottenham simply don’t have right now.
Stood in the away end, the wide eyes and bright spirits of a fanbase that is quickly getting caught up in thoughts of fairy tales and dreams. At this pace, Villa are on course for 82 points, 18 more than in any Premier League campaign since 1993.
Their high line will provoke comprehensive defeat on occasion, but in the mean time they will swarm over lesser opponents and spook those fortunate to call themselves peers. They are also now ahead of Tottenham. They are the new top-four pretenders.
Tottenham
Sit back and take a second, if you can. Recall the days of Antonio Conte at Tottenham Hotspur and imagine a scenario. Conte is without Harry Kane and a number of other senior players through injury and suspension. He is forced to play a defence full of full-backs and the midfield contained Bryan Gil and Giovani Lo Celso, two forgotten parts of a long-ago abandoned plan. Consider the pre-match demeanour, the scowls of a man pursuing a one-man fight against his own misfortune.
Now consider how the subsequent match may have gone for those watching, whoever Tottenham were playing. It would have been one for the purists, just so long as those purists were also sickos who didn’t like watching players having shots and had a fetish for people embarking on grand tours of self-preservation in their post-match dealings with the media.
Of course this means both everything and nothing. Tottenham were beaten at home by Aston Villa on Sunday afternoon and that will be the whole of the law for many. Those predisposed against Spurs will use any praise in defeat as a cause for great anger or humour or bitterness or all three.
If this was my club, we wouldn’t be praised for this. Being perceived as a media darling is both a blessing and a curse. Someone will say “Spursy” soon and, more remarkably, someone will still find it funny.
But here’s the thing: Tottenham are fantastic to watch, for better and for worse. They finished eighth last season at the end of one of their most dismal, dull, dour campaigns in living memory and now their games are exceptional to watch.
They create chances by the bucketload but there is a hole in their own. Their matches, Sunday being the prime example, are knockabout, playground stuff where you half expect a coach to run out and tell everyone to stop bunching around the ball. They concede a goal and everyone seems to act surprised, despite them allowing four clear shots in the previous seven minutes.
Ange Postecoglou has dealt with plenty during the last few months, including but not limited to the loss of his best player, best defenders and best midfielders either on temporary, extended or permanent bases. This autumn increasingly appears to be a two-month long game of Tottenham Hotspur Buckaroo during which you remove component parts of a squad and wait to see when everything rears onto its front legs and implodes.
Perhaps Rodrigo Bentancur’s latest injury was the tipping point. There was no control whatsoever in midfield when he left. In defence, Emerson Royal and Ben Davies are a centre-back partnership for the ages, if those ages are a parallel universe on a different planet. You can’t make things this weird and expect them to work out well more times than not.
Newcastle
The plaudits will all go to Newcastle United’s attacking players, and with good reason given the handsome, emphatic home win over a team whose natural place was once above Newcastle but is now way below. Anthony Gordon continues to impress, while Alexander Isak is becoming an elite, multifunctional forward.
But I wanted to talk about Jamaal Lascelles instead. Before September, Lascelles was a forgotten figure at Newcastle despite being the club captain. His name was one of those who unkind and overly ambitious supporters cursed online. Their view was that Lascelles was nothing more than deadwood and, therefore, that he must be turfed out the club to make room for a shiny new name.
It was a reasonable opinion, albeit expressed crudely. Lascelles had not started a game all season. He had only started five in the whole of 2022-23: two in the Carabao Cup, a FA Cup shock defeat to Sheffield Wednesday and two Premier League defeats.
Then Sven Botman got injured, Eddie Howe was forced to turn to his club captain, and an entire fanbase gulped. Lascelles came back into the team after roughly 18 months out of it and has performed superbly. He is not a passing defender, a builder of moves in the manner that Botman can do. But he is committed, dedicated, disciplined and has now started in victories over Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain, Arsenal and Chelsea this season, conceding only twice in the process. Fair play to him.
Brighton
The celebration at full-time from Roberto De Zerbi told you everything you needed to know. The celebration police might have sent down three armoured vehicles and a team of undercover agents, but what on earth is the problem with a manager going crazy in front of his own fans after a run of bad form was ended despite adversity. If those reactions are manufactured, they grate. I think we can all agree that De Zerbi doesn’t have to put on an act to go a little crazy.
That makes him the perfect manager for this football team, the Premier League’s great entertainers who we should request to have every match televised live. They have now scored and conceded in each of their last 17 top-flight games, which is the longest run of any team since 1960. This season alone they have won 3-1 three times (and lost once), won 4-1 twice, won 3-2 once and been thumped 6-1.
But it’s not just that. Brighton rank third in the league for shots on target but also in the top half for shots on target faced. They take risks in their own area because they want to cause panic in your third of the pitch. They have a relentless rotation policy that makes the starting lineup as difficult to predict as the formation. It’s piping hot madness and we’re absolutely here for it.
Man Utd
Teenage dreams really are so hard to beat. Erik ten Hag needed excitement and he needed it bad, and Alejandro Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo, between them, produced the best (away performance) he ever had.
Overpriced, floundering superstars have passed up their chance to shine all too often this season, leaving United in a right mess.
So, for the first time since taking charge of United 18 months ago, Ten Hag started two teenagers in a Premier League match at Goodison Park – to great success.
Garnacho ensured at least one trophy should be coming to Old Trafford this season with the kind of goal he could try 1000 times and not even hit the target. Think Wayne Rooney against Manchester City in 2011, without the shinpads.
The goal 133 seconds into the contest ruined Everton’s afternoon before it had even begun and did exactly what Ten Hag would have needed on a potentially hazardous afternoon – killed any hope of creating a cauldron-like atmosphere.
The goal of the season – it surely will not be beaten – will forever overshadow one of the best debuts from a United academy graduate, however.
One of Mainoo’s defence-splitting passes led Diogo Dalot to come running across to the 18-year-old to shake his hand, somewhat in awe. Something that tells you as much about others in red as it does about the quality of the debutant.
WHAT A GOAL ALEJANDRO GARNACHO!!!!
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) November 26, 2023pic.twitter.com/L9h1inY5rT
He covered every blade of glass, but not in any reckless manner you could forgive a teenager for. On the ball, the composure was unerring.
One of the biggest disappointments this term has been Casemiro, seen last season as a catalyst for change at Old Trafford. If Mainoo can be trusted on such a potentially precarious occasion, the Brazilian’s decline could be very quickly put to the back of everyone’s minds. By Pete Hall
Read more: Why Garnacho’s overhead kick is the best Premier League goal ever
West Ham
There is a situation building at West Ham. Academy forward Divin Mubama is one of the potential stars of the club’s future, but his contract expires at the end of this season. So far, Mubama is refusing to sign a new one over concerns that he is not being given regular minutes. You can entirely understand his position: these are the most important two years in his development.
That has caused some uneasiness amongst supporters. Most do indeed enjoy new signings arriving and taking their team up the league, but there’s nothing quite like an academy kid making his way and becoming a star. After a summer when Declan Rice left for bigger and better, this matters more to West Ham fans than ever before.
So when David Moyes chose to start Danny Ings, even when Jarrod Bowen and Michail Antonio had been ruled absent, it felt like the potential end for Mubama as a West Ham player. Cut to West Ham trailing Burnley, Mubama coming on for Ings and the away team eventually winning the game with two late goals. It doubled the number of minutes that he had been given this season.
Chelsea
Sometimes you watch Chelsea under Mauricio Pochettino (although the same happened under the last two managers too) and you can see what he can potentially build here: Raheem Sterling as the attacking leader, a dynamic and progressive midfield, energy and pace out wide and a defence being built on the job.
Sometimes you watch Chelsea and you laugh involuntarily at just how badly a team created for this budget can be, and the only viable conclusion is that they’re going to have to spend another £500m just to clear out the deadwood and create a functional side capable of seriously challenging for major trophies. Spoiler: on Saturday against Newcastle, it was the second option.
The defending was routinely appalling, monumentally bad. If Sheffield United repelled dangerous attacks in the same way (and they have), we would wonder if Paul Heckingbottom had lost control. I don’t know if that’s on Pochettino, because the errors were so basic, or simply self-evidential proof of a club unable to escape its own chaos.
Robert Sanchez could do nothing about any of the four goals but looks nervous at every set piece. Reece James should be a senior player now, but his desperate (and desperately unlucky) season continued with a brainless challenge and second yellow card.
Benoit Badiashile had the same attitude towards marking opponents in the penalty area as I do when summoned to the dentist, a series of get-outs and I’ll-definitely-arrange-to-meet-up-with-you-sometimes. Marc Cucurella didn’t sense the danger, got booked and will now be banned – if any of that surprises you then bless you, innocent child.
Thiago Silva was the worst of all, a vastly experienced central defender making a stupid individual error that ruined any hope of avoiding defeat. That mistake at that time by that player suggests that nobody is comfortable with each other or with themselves. And that is damning for Chelsea’s hopes of saving something from this season.
Brentford
The level of opposition means that this is no time for any panic. So too does Brentford’s record before their last two matches, three consecutive league wins to take them safely into midtable. But still, it’s an interesting fact: this is the first time since December 2021 that Brentford have lost two league games in a row without scoring.
Is this becoming something of a theme? Perhaps. We’re being slightly selective here, but Brentford lost 1-0 to Manchester United in April, 1-0 to Liverpool in May, 1-0 to Newcastle and Arsenal (Carabao Cup) in September and 1-0 to Arsenal in November. It’s a compliment really, given the resources gap. Brentford make themselves incredibly hard to break down in their toughest league fixtures and are probably the most organised team in the Premier League.
Unfortunately, that can occasionally make them slightly blunt in attack, leaving them open to one moment of brilliance, lapse in defensive concentration or bad luck. And it’s more likely to happen without Ivan Toney in the team and with Kevin Schade injured. Brentford’s 4-3-3 on Saturday was packed with industry and discipline, but it had precious little creativity in midfield. In games like these, it’s basically left to Yoane Wissa and Bryan Mbeumo to do the creating and the scoring.
Wolves
Play against Fulham on Monday evening.
Crystal Palace
Injuries are up as a whole in the Premier League this season. Newcastle are one club who would scoff at any other claiming that they are in crisis. They might also stress that coping in adversity is what matters. Crystal Palace have lost to Everton and Luton and that doesn’t suggest much mettle.
But, honestly, this is going to break Roy Hodgson soon and that’s not something any pensioner deserves. It isn’t the volume of injuries, you understand: for Saturday, only Dean Henderson, James Tomkins and young striker Jesurun Rak-Sakyi were unavailable. It’s that every time Palace get an important player back and look as if they may kick on to end a tricky run of results, more bad news lands.
If you were to survey Palace supporters for the club’s three most important players, they would pick one central defender (probably Marc Guehi, although Joachim Andersen is the senior colleague), Cheick Doucoure and Eberechi Eze. Doucoure was the breakout star of last season, doing the job of one-and-a-half in midfield. Eze is the creative force, Palace’s ceiling raiser.
On Saturday, both got injured and both sound quite serious. “He’s got a bad injury – I’ll let the doctor deal with that first,” said Hodgson of Doucoure. “It’s not going to be an injury that keeps him out for a short period of time.” He also confirmed that an opposition player landed on Eze’s ankle, causing great discomfort.
Palace have taken three points from their last five league matches. They face West Ham (away), Liverpool, Manchester City, Brighton, Chelsea and Arsenal before the end of January. If two of their most important players are out until then, Palace could easily be dragged further down.
Nottingham Forest
If Brighton are the Premier League’s team of chaos in a good way, Nottingham Forest are the same team but with far more negative connotations. To put this into perspective, Forest have lost three games 3-2 already this season and drawn another 2-2. In those matches they have held a 1-0 lead, a 2-1 lead and a 2-0 lead twice.
At some point soon or eventually, that is going to do for Steve Cooper. He has been under pressure ever since promotion. Forest’s owner Evangelos Marinakis is highly ambitious and does not see his team slogging in relegation battles for long without the manager paying the price. Last year, Cooper twice came close to losing his job only to be saved by home wins and a wave of support from the stands. It might well be win or sack against Everton next weekend.
Cooper is not without fault. Since the start of last season, Forest have repeatedly lost points from winning positions. They seem intent to sit back and invite pressure but are then unable to cope with that pressure no matter who starts in defence or midfield. Their disorganisation at set pieces is disconcerting and they still retain their annoying habit of conceding goals in clusters.
Cooper also deserves faith. There is no manager who has united the club’s matchday support like him and no successor who would necessarily do better. Forest signed another large crop of players towards the end of the transfer window and are being acclimatised en masse – that takes time.
There’s no doubt that the performances are better. Forest have lost two games this season by more than a single goal: Liverpool and Manchester City away. They are competing but falling short. They are being punished for mistakes and have suffered from a series of excellent opposition goals (no team in the league forces their opponents to shoot from further out, on average). There is breathing room this season and that might well allow Cooper to build something sustainable.
But you haven’t been paying attention if you think that’s how it goes. Next Saturday at the City Ground, we will witness the third occasion of Cooper in job-saving mode. In the previous two, two wins. Sean Dyche’s Everton, suddenly one of the form away teams in the country, may land the final blow.
Fulham
Play against Wolves on Monday evening.
Bournemouth
Andoni Iraola loves wingers. He uses them to stretch the game wide but also high up the pitch, often telling both of them to sacrifice defensive tracking back in favour of hoping to win possession and sparking a counter attack. He wants them to drive and provide chances for the striker but also dribble infield to cause danger.
Related: Bournemouth have lots of wingers and most of them are pretty decent. He has Marcus Tavernier, who has kicked on in the Premier League and is still only 24. He has David Brooks, thankfully healthy again after his illness battle.
He has Justin Kluivert, comfortable in any position behind the striker. Antoine Semenyo, bought in January. Dango Outtara, also bought in January. Luis Sinisterra, bought this summer.
This has provoked three things: 1) Iraola publicly conceded that the litany of options would lead him to trying wide players in different positions – Kluivert played behind the striker on Saturday and scored; 2) There is great competition for places in those wide roles, which is getting the best out of Tavernier, Semenyo et al. 3) Those players can easily swap positions or drift centrally, which makes them very difficult to defend.
Bournemouth are likely to keep conceding goals this season. They have kept four league clean sheets since March and two of those were against teams now playing their football in the Championship. They will occasionally suffer heavy defeats because Iraola will not compromise on his press and higher-class opponents will bypass it: 6-1 at Manchester City, 4-0 to Arsenal, 3-1 to Liverpool and Brighton.
But with these wingers playing in this style, Iraola was always confident that his team would have enough attacking prowess to pick up points when the fixture list turned in their favour. It looks like he was right.
Luton Town
You don’t have to look far for engaging human interest stories at Luton Town (and we must take care not to sound patronising), but Chiedozie Ogbene’s ranks higher than most. Born in Nigeria, Ogbene moved with his family to Cork in Ireland at the age of eight when his father got a job there. He began playing both Gaelic and association football and made almost 50 appearances for Cork City and Limerick at the start of his career.
When a move to Brentford – then in the Championship – didn’t work out, Ogbene was loaned to Exeter City in League Two and then joined Rotherham in League One permanently. He was injured for a year and finally played a full season in the Championship in 2022-23 before Luton made him an offer after the expiry of his contract at Rotherham.
Ogbene was fantastic against Palace on Saturday. It wasn’t just his impossibly good cross for the winner, although the angle from beyond the back post does it justice and makes you salivate. It’s that, as with several other Luton players – even during defeat – he looks as if he comprehends just how unexpected this all is and thus how important it is to make every appearance count. Assisting the winner in a first Premier League home win? Ask Ogbene a year ago if he expected that.
Sheffield United
This will sound particularly uncharitable towards Paul Heckingbottom, who is doing his best in trying, imbalance circumstances, but a team’s ability to survive relegation can often depend on when or whether they choose to change their manager (and most teams choose to do so at least once during a relegation season these days).
Sheffield United may just be this season’s best example. They opened their league campaign with three straight defeats but then earned a creditable home draw against Everton. That came directly before the September international break, earning Heckingbottom some patience.
Before long, Heckingbottom was under serious pressure again, after six more defeats. Then his team beat Wolves at home and drew with Brighton away from home to offer significant hope of a revival. Again, those results came directly before the November international break. Had one or both of them not occurred, Heckingbottom may well have lost his job – this is prime sacking season.
Now, having survived the last international break of the year, Heckingbottom oversaw perhaps the most damaging result of Sheffield United’s season so far. He can hardly expect to be sacked so soon after the Wolves and Brighton results, but if his team lose away at Burnley next weekend, the suspicion strengthens that they have achieved their results in an unhelpful order.
Everton
Am I the only one astonished by the strength of the reaction towards the Premier League by Everton supporters? I fully understand that this punishment makes life harder and I fully expected them to be upset, but the speed with which this has pivoted to “This. Is. Corruption.” caught me off guard. I expected five or six points and the Premier League went with 10. Read the full explainer and that doesn’t seem unreasonable.
I also appreciate that the fans are the ones punished here. But what about supporters of the clubs who weren’t breaking the rules and suffered as a result – they must be considered too? Surely it is the mismanagement of the club that has Everton in this mess, the same owners against whom they were protesting not long ago. Why has that so quickly become “the league is screwing us over because it hates us”?
One attractive theory is that perceived injustice is an effective ingredient in creating the siege mentality that can extricate a club from such a mess. Goodison Park was a cauldron on Sunday because by uniting a fanbase behind a cause, Everton will be stronger. Every free-kick conceded, every decision that went against them, prolonged the cries of corruption. It doesn’t matter whether everyone who held up a pink card believed in that theory or not. It matters that they presented a united front.
It didn’t work against Manchester United because Alejandro Garnacho produced something stupidly good that nobody could have foreseen and then they failed to get what they deserved before the penalty, but the fuel of the fire was present. Everton are manufacturing a situation where it is them against the world.
Read more: Everton’s potential new owners committed to takeover despite points deduction
Burnley
Burnley were already the first side in English top-flight history to lose their first six home games of a league season. Now, they are one of two teams in English league history to lose their first seven. There’s only misery in that company.
Saturday brought the worst loss of all. You can take being beaten comfortably by better opponents at full-strength, but Burnley had a lead and were facing a West Ham side without either of the first-choice forwards and still conspired to throw it away in the last 15 minutes. That punches you twice in the gut. Sheffield United at home next week is a must-win.
The most concerning aspect of Burnley’s season is that their great strength of last year has evaporated and become their biggest weakness. In the Championship in 2022-23, Burnley took the lead in 38 of their 46 matches and lost only one of those games. That is an extraordinary hit rate.
This season, Burnley have taken the lead on six occasions in their 13 league games. They have won one of those six games and have lost four times. That hit rate is appalling and it will relegate them if it continues. The fun fact is this: Burnley have spent a higher percentage of their matches in the lead this season than Manchester United.
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