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Aston Villa have beaten Manchester City and Arsenal in the same week, keeping clean sheets against both, and now we have no idea how high their ceiling is but we are pumped to find out. Liverpool top the Premier League after yet another late goal, but Villa are the most interesting to watch right now.
City ended their sticky run with a sticky win at Luton Town on Sunday, but Fulham, Everton and Tottenham Hotspur were the big winners that day. Fulham have scored 10 goals in two games, Spurs are back on track and Sean Dyche is doing classic Sean Dyche things at Goodison Park.
Scroll down for my analysis on every team below (listed in table order)…
This weekend’s results
Saturday 9 December
- Crystal Palace 1-2 Liverpool
- Brighton 1-1 Burnley
- Man Utd 0-3 Bournemouth
- Sheff Utd 1-0 Brentford
- Wolves 1-1 Nott’m Forest
- Aston Villa 1-0 Arsenal
Sunday 10 December
- Everton 2-0 Chelsea
- Fulham 5-0 West Ham
- Luton 1-2 Man City
- Tottenham 4-1 Newcastle
Liverpool
You cannot doubt the fight and determination. Liverpool have gone 1-0 down in seven of their nine away games this season but have taken 18 points from losing positions, comfortably the best in the Premier League. They are also top of the league and have the chance to break the resolve of Manchester United next weekend. This has the potential to be a glorious week.
But Jurgen Klopp knows that Liverpool cannot keep surviving like this. They have trailed in more league games than Everton this season. They look sluggish in open play, too slow to create chances and still vulnerable to the counter attack. They have squeezed past Sheffield United and Crystal Palace in similar circumstances this week, but better teams will make Liverpool pay if they don’t fix this soon.
The secret, for now? Being the Premier League champion of late goals. They are a theme of this season as a whole, but Liverpool’s record is absolutely ridiculous. In their last eight league games alone, Klopp’s team have scored in the 74th, 75th, 76th, 77th, 80th, 87th, 88th, 91st, 94th, 95th and 97th minute.
Arsenal
Some supporters will blame the late handball kerfuffle for Arsenal losing their place atop the Premier League, but I wonder, if he has his time again, whether Mikel Arteta might use a different midfield strategy. I think he got it wrong.
Midweek in Luton used every ounce of Arsenal’s physical and mental resolve. They will have realised that Unai Emery’s Aston Villa are incredibly intense in central midfield and look to hound you. Their team for Saturday was packed with central midfielders: John McGinn, Douglas Luiz, Boubacar Kamara, Youri Tielemans.
With Kai Havertz and Martin Odegaard both starting, at times it felt like Declan Rice was having to deal with all those players by himself. The assistance came from Oleksandr Zinchenko stepping up and infield but, as for the goal, that leaves a space at left-back.
During the first half, Arsenal didn’t get going. By playing with those two creative No 8s, they mostly attempted to play through midfield to create their chances in open play. The best way to get at Villa this season has been longer balls over the top or down the channels, given their high defensive line. Surely Rice plus Jorginho, sacrificing Havertz, would have given them more stability and allowed them to play exactly that type of pass?
Instead, Arsenal had five attacking players on the pitch against a team who have flourished all season when their opponents have been caught with too many players high up the pitch. That set the tone for the match.
Aston Villa
I am reticent to call Aston Villa title challengers, just as I am with any surprise contender. That brings with it the burden of expectation that can be deeply unfair. Hope becomes expectancy and, with it, you can become hostages to fortune. When you eventually revert towards the mean and a club with more money or better players pips you, you become bottlers. We saw this play out last season and Villa’s form was far less widely predicted than Arsenal’s.
So let’s just say this: Villa are where they are right now on merit. They are the only team in the Premier League not to drop points from a winning position. They have won a club record 15 home league games on the spin. They have just beaten last season’s top two and they have done with two very different performances.
Villa’s away record is indeed patchy, but then that’s less of a problem this season because no team is close to perfect. We have seen that plenty this week along: Arsenal grinded one win out and then slipped; Liverpool twice struggled past strugglers; Manchester City lost at Villa themselves. Right now, Unai Emery’s team are as good as any of them.
It’s working so well because there is the perfect blend of technical quality and desire across the pitch. John McGinn sums it up perfectly, a man who has just had the best week of his club career. Pau Torres and Diego Carlos are a fine combination and Ezri Konsa is playing wonderfully well too. Ollie Watkins is in that centre forward sweet spot where your reputation causes as many problems as his performance level in any given game.
At home at least, the tactics are working perfectly. One of the most remarkably statistics of this season so far is that Villa have caught their opponents offside 75 times in 15 matches. At the end of Saturday’s games, no other team had more than 48 and 12 different Premier League teams have a figure between 20 and 29.
This is football.
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) December 10, 2023
Emery Ball in full flow!pic.twitter.com/Cy18WxMQFg
But then why wouldn’t it be working when they have an excellent technician and tactician in charge. Emery was chewed up and spat out by his Arsenal experience, the sacrificial post-Arsene Wenger lamb before Mikel Arteta benefitted from the blanker canvas and bigger budgets. That part-failure is the exception on a superb CV. He now joins Alex Ferguson, Jurgen Klopp, Pep Guardiola and Roberto Mancini to record 15 Premier League home wins on the spin. There at least he is in title-winning company.
Finally, there is reason to have faith in Villa’s squad depth. None of Matty Cash, Alex Moreno, Moussa Diaby, Emi Buendia, Leander Dendoncker, Jacob Ramsey, Clement Lenglet, Nicolo Zaniolo, Jhon Duran, Tyrone Mings or Bertrand Traore were in Emery’s starting XI against Arsenal. There are Big Six head coaches who crave those options in reserve.
Man City
Manchester City went to Luton to stare their own hell square in the face and lived to tell the tale.
Never before in his managerial career had Pep Guardiola gone five league games without victory. His team trailed at half-time, bullied and a little bruised by a physical onslaught they should have known was coming and their own incompetence in turning control into goals. Plot twist: this team is really very good when the component parts of its attack connect.
If the theory that Erling Haaland’s absence might remove the focal point of Luton Town’s defending to create a different, multi-headed beast, the theory looked bunk in the first half. City had total control across two-third of the pitch, but were largely restricted to shots from distance that made Guardiola scowl like a teenager told to tidy his room twice.
Julian Alvarez was the potential salvation and the problem. There are things he does superbly well – winning lots of trophies at a young age, most notably – but he is in a funk and the liberty of a Haaland-less frontline did not cause its end. Four times in the first 25 minutes, Alvarez committed the cardinal Manchester City sin, losing the ball through a slack first touch.
But it’s not just him. City can be the best side in Europe to watch when they’re in full flow, a blur of fizzes and crackles and one-touch passes and finishes. Some of those present in Luton always live by that remit. Bernardo Silva and Phil Foden were honourable exceptions to the general theme, magnificent throughout and diminutive leaders through example. Bernardo’s finish was worthy of getting any team back into any game.
The rest? Meh. Jack Grealish is unsurpassed at winning free-kicks and winding up the type of supporters who lets their eyes go googly when they use the worst curse words around children, but he was also guilty of stunting City’s rhythm.
The general pattern of play: Grealish gets the ball, beats a man, rolls his foot over the ball, dips back in the opposite direction and ends up where he started. In the meantime, seven players in orange shirts have rushed back like a team of well-meaning stewards.
A RAPID TURNAROUND FROM MANCHESTER CITY!
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) December 10, 2023pic.twitter.com/mCcDicUuu3
The defending can be filed under “weird” too. The scenario is this: City look completely comfortable until the point that they don’t, at which point everybody wets themselves, the opposition score and then City defenders look at each other as if they had all blacked out for the previous six seconds.
We should at least commend City on their resilience, even against a club not created via vast state wealth. In the midst of a heady, spiky atmosphere, they passed quicker and more effectively after the break. Grealish, playing close enough to those of a Bedfordshire persuasion that he could hear each of the taunts, offered a wink and a wave after the equaliser and then scored the winner. The escape with a win and wins are all that matter right now.
Read more: Pep Guardiola’s row with Jack Grealish tells you exactly where Man City are at
Tottenham
Is Ange Postecoglou’s untethered, uncompromising brand of attacking football brilliant or brittle? Or brilliantly brittle? No one knows, and perhaps that’s the brilliance of it.
It all clicked into place once again, against Newcastle on Sunday, producing four thrilling goals that could have been more. Still, there was much relief when they added the second and third, having thrown away one-goal leads in their last five winless games.
Surely every neutral wants Postecoglou’s approach to work. The Spurs manager creates fun, frantic games of football, which are hugely entertaining but, as recent weeks have shown, prone to errors and dropped points. The obvious potential negatives to such relentless attacking football were exposed in defeats to West Ham, Aston Villa, Wolves and Chelsea, so the Newcastle win steadied a rocky ship.
Their early season form means that despite the downturn in results they are still fifth and in touching distance of the top four. Now they have a winnable run of games for Postecoglou to prove there is Champions League form amid the madness. By Sam Cunningham
Man Utd
“They send a lot of players forward so you will get spaces,” said Andoni Iraola after Bournemouth’s 3-0 win at Old Trafford on Saturday. “We knew they would make our wingers run backwards, but we knew when we could recover high our forwards would have space. We knew in transitions we would have our chances and we took them.”
This is pertinent because it is pretty much exactly the same thing as Gary O’Neil – after his first competitive match in charge of Wolves – said after their unfortunate 1-0 defeat at Manchester United on the opening weekend. Wolves had 23 shots.
Why is nobody solving this problem? Erik ten Hag wanted to create a team that was effective at creating chances in transitions. Not only are they terrible at creating chances in transition and vaguely uninspiring, they are also incredibly vulnerable to the one thing the manager is supposed to excel at.
You can beat Chelsea, fine. They are also a basket case and they leave even more space in front of their defence than United do. That means nothing if you then fall apart immediately afterwards. But when Ten Hag says that his team are not good enough to be consistent, what he means is that they are never good enough when their opponents do not allow them to counter at will. Given the resources and options at his disposal, that is humiliating.
Ten Hag keeps talking about fighting. He keeps saying that the squad is together. He can drop players he perceives to not be trying their best. But on Saturday, Harry Maguire was the only player to come out of the match with any credit. Either the tactics are poor, the communication is poor or the man management is poor.
And it’s getting worse. United have lost 12 games this season in 22 matches in all competitions. They lost 12 in 62 matches last season.
Newcastle
Eddie Howe must solve Newcastle’s troubling away form that risks derailing their entire season. Seven goals conceded in the space of four days on the road at Everton and Tottenham, now five games unbeaten away from home.
It is such an extraordinary contrast to their form at St James’ Park this season, where they have won nine times, including big scalps against Aston Villa, Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal, and lost only twice.
Struggling under the weight of juggling domestic and Champions League football, a squad ravaged by injuries, the diabolical away form, the players looking exhausted, the season could unravel unless something changes.
The two heavy league defeats within a week leave them seven points off Manchester City in fourth place and the prospect of qualifying for the Champions League for a second season in a row looking bleak. By Sam Cunningham
Brighton
Brighton’s Premier League and Europa League form have been inversely proportional this season – they have stuttered in the league ever since they overcame their early hiccups in Europe.
In fact, the view of the Premier League form rather depends on your optimism or pessimism: one defeat in seven or two wins in ten? One thing is certainly true: Brighton have taken three points more than Luton over those ten games.
To which we say: carry on as you are. Brighton are not going to be in relegation trouble at any point, or even close. Who knows when they ever get in Europe again (Swansea City are just one example of a club who were riding the wave and then fell suddenly), so maximise the advantages of that competition and aim to give your supporters memories that they will remember forever.
Finally, Brighton remain piping hot fun for the neutral: both teams have scored in each of their last 20 Premier League matches. They’re having fun, we’re having fun, the supporters are having fun – long may it all continue.
West Ham
Two seasons ago, West Ham gained a reputation in this column for being the most annoying team of all because their inconsistency made the writer of a weekly column repeatedly look like an idiot and I really do not need help with that. That West Ham is returning but in a different guise. Now it’s working out why everybody is so damn angry despite them making out of their group in Europe and being ninth in the Premier League.
But you watch them against Fulham and you get it. David Moyes moaned after the game about the lack of time to prepare – West Ham played on Thursday evening and Fulham played on Wednesday. If that explains the difference between a team competing and being pumped 5-0 by a side several places below them in the league, fair enough. Spoiler: it doesn’t and Moyes knows it. The lack of intensity with and without the ball was depressing.
West Ham have become a weird experiment for how much goodwill a team can generate and still have a proportion of their supporters not know if they’re happy and it be impossible to blame them for their lack of gratitude. They have taken 10 points from their last five games in the Premier League, so why does everything feel so wrong?
I’ll tell you why: because West Ham went away to Fulham, entirely sacrificed possession and territory – presumably to play on the counter. They then wholly failed to carry out both elements of that strategy, being defensively organised to soak up pressure and actually trying to attack after the first 15 minutes. The defending for the last goal in particular was appalling and suggested that the players had simply given up.
Fulham
Raul Jimenez, comeback king. I’m happy to concede that I thought his use as a Premier League centre forward had evaporated, but he has suddenly started flowering at Craven Cottage and, magically, Fulham look twice the team for it. Jimenez has four goals in his last five Premier League games having failed to score in his previous 33.
It never fails to amaze the restorative difference that a goal can bring to a striker. Suddenly Jimenez, who was lumbering around the penalty box like a sad bear a few weeks ago, is making runs in behind, winning headers, holding the ball up to link play and asking the ball to be crossed into the box.
It’s also incredible the difference an in-form striker makes to a football team that was desperately short of goals. Nobody is saying that Jimenez will be as effective as Aleksandar Mitrovic, but a month ago I didn’t think he could be as good as Carlos Vinicius. These are strange times indeed. Fulham are the goalscoring kings of the Premier League (over the last week).
Brentford
I’m not sure it’s an excuse for defeat to Sheffield United, but Brentford are suffering from their own absentee crisis. At Bramall Lane on Saturday, Thomas Frank was missing Kristoffer Ajer, Nathan Collins, Josh Dasilva, Rico Henry, Aaron Hickey, Mathias Jensen, Kevin Schade, Ivan Toney and Bryan Mbeumo.
It being Brentford rather than a higher-profile club, that list hasn’t really been widely noticed, but it is crippling their attempts to make progress consistently and create and score chances. That leaves Brentford’s usual plan of sitting back, soaking up pressure and then sparking quick counter attacks far more one-dimensional. They’ve scored four goals in their last five games – one was a penalty and the other three were against Luton.
Brentford have lost four of their last five matches and that may well continue until a proportion of those absentees returns. Frank will be glad to have 19 points on the board that puts Brentford in that very weird clutch of clubs who are safely in midtable but nobody can really tell if they’re having a good season or not.
Read more: Burnley and Brentford battle for £15m Championship star who ‘loves’ Sunderland
Chelsea
How bad does this get before Mauricio Pochettino is under pressure? Or is that just not a thing because everyone is so convinced that Chelsea are such a circus that the manager has little control over what happens and therefore that this is another season wasted.
There is a vague logic to this: Chelsea bought young players who will likely need two years to settle in and, unsurprisingly, they are taking the full two years to settle in. But there’s three problems with that: 1) nobody knows if they’re actually going to turn out to be good enough, or just more time and money wasted, 2) in the meantime, everything on the pitch is a bonfire which wastes the best or last years of the senior players and 3) Pochettino is now talking about needing more players, which suggests a pressure to achieve in the short term also exists.
Oh, sorry, but also point 4) Can you think of a club in world football less likely to have the same structures and people in place – manager, coaches, recruitment, tactical style – in two years time than Chelsea? So if we’re accepting that they will buy more players because the young players are making mistakes and Chelsea need results now, what happens to the minutes for those young players they have bought? And who’s to say that the next manager, because there’s always a next manager, will rate them as highly?
It is 11 December and if you create a table based on the results of every club who has been in the Premier League for the entirety of 2023, nobody has fewer points than Chelsea. They are a mess and nobody seems capable or willing or powerful enough or sensible enough to fix it.
Read more: Chelsea’s featureless football is testing Todd Boehly’s brittle patience
Wolves
We are finally seeing the Matheus Cunha that Wolves signed last January. In his first 28 Premier League appearances for Wolves, Cunha contributed five goals or assists. He has assisted or scored a goal in each of his last five.
The player himself has a simple answer:
“Everything is about confidence. Everyone takes time to adapt when they go into a new culture in the world, and coming into the Premier League is no different. It’s the best league in the world, so it’s a little bit harder and takes more time to adapt, but I feel like I’m much more confident now, I feel a lot more adapted to the league, to my teammates and I think we’re showing that on the pitch.”
With confidence comes the expansion of his game to fully demonstrate his range. Last season, Cunha would often stay high up the pitch waiting for service. He had been signed to answer the goalscoring emergency and struggled to do so. The last thing he wanted to do was miss out on chances because he was near the halfway line.
Now that’s changing, in part because Cunha is contributing and partly because Hwang Hee-chan is doing the same. Now Cunha roams to look for the ball and knits together attacks as well as finishes them. Against Forest, he had 34 touches of the ball in the middle third of the pitch. That’s more than in any other appearance in a Wolves shirt.
Bournemouth
I love it when a plan comes together. Last week, I wrote this piece on Andoni Iraola and the headline suggested that he could beat Manchester United. It made me gulp a little – the headline was more confident than me. Never in doubt.
Within that piece, the broad strokes of Bournemouth’s tactical plan were detailed: “There are certainly broad patterns: counter-attacking with wingers, pressing high up the pitch, the propensity to mix between slow passing and direct play, a need to be ready to attack at any moment.”
Here was that plan perfected and Manchester United could not cope. Bournemouth had only 31 per cent of the ball and took half as many shots as United, but they had the better chances, they were by far the better team and they were efficient in front of goal because Dominic Solanke is loving life.
Ryan Christie has been the midfield star of the last two months, the all-action central midfielder we never knew he could be. At Old Trafford, Lewis Cook shared the load brilliantly. Christie completed the most tackles of any Bournemouth player, but Cook created the most chances.
The key to the counter working is the accuracy and timing of those springing passes from midfield. Iraola is getting them to nail both.
Finally, Bournemouth’s defence is much-improved because there is a consistency of selection that few other Premier League clubs have been able to secure. Over the last four league games, Iraola has started the same goalkeeper, the same back four and the same central midfield combination. This run is all the more impressive because both of their summer midfield signings – Alex Scott and Tyler Adams – are injured.
Crystal Palace
It has not been a good week for Roy Hodgson. A 2-0 home defeat to Bournemouth, after which he and his Palace team were roundly booed at Selhurst Park, was followed by a 2-1 home defeat to Liverpool inflicted in painful circumstances with the last-minute winner. A heavy loss at Manchester City next weekend and Hodgson may well lose his job, particularly if other managers that Palace like become available.
On top of that, Hodgson made a dismal PR mistake in midweek. He subsequently apologised for suggesting that Palace supporters who are unhappy at the current situation have been “spoiled”, but the damage is done and you can understand those who take his first statement as face value.
What Hodgson surely meant is that Premier League consolidation, largely free from relegation trouble, should never be taken for granted at non-financially elite clubs. But his comments angered those who are getting used to dismal football and results rapidly heading the same way. Palace have taken four points from their last eight league games and one from five, despite facing Everton, Luton and Bournemouth recently.
Just as importantly, Hodgson is not a long-term option and he’s not picking the club’s younger players (including recent signings). So if he’s not going to be Palace’s manager in two years, he’s not going to give the next generation a chance and he’s not going to understand the frustration of supporters, what’s the point in him being here?
Nottingham Forest
And still Steve Cooper clings on. And still Nottingham Forest supporters chant for him, whether out of support, defiances, thanks or farewell. Reports suggest that he will get one more game, Tottenham on Friday night.
This was so different from Wednesday at Fulham that it demanded Cooper be given another week. There was fight, belief, cohesion and defensive organisation. Forest should have won the game – Harry Toffolo missed from four yards and Cheikhou Kouyate missed a one-on-one before half-time.
There was also virtually a completely new team, seven changes from Wednesday. At Fulham, eight of the starting XI had joined the club over the summer. At Molineux, eight of the XI were Forest players last season. Cooper thought it would be his last game in charge and so he had to do it on his terms and with his players.
It is that lack of cohesion that is making progress slow. You do not get to sign 44 players in 15 months and then expect anything else.
Forest are a mini-Chelsea, signing players based on their supposed individual quality rather then the chances of them working well together seamlessly and quickly and whether they really, desperately want to be here. They have also got the issue of the injured striker with no obvious replacement.
What this means beyond this week is unclear. Owner Evangelos Marinakis wanted a top-ten finish and he wanted attacking verve. The first was ludicrously ambitious and the second has given way to a need to pick up points. Friday night may be everything. It’s not an obviously sustainable way to run a football club.
Everton
“He has been tremendous since I have been in the building. His work ethic is constant,” said Sean Dyche to BBC Sport when asked about Abdoulaye Doucoure after Everton’s 2-0 win over Chelsea.
“Three games in a week? That doesn’t bother him. He is like, ‘OK, let’s go.’
“His mentality has been solid and firm and he is delivering. He can find quality moments.”
Dyche is right to pour on the praise. Since his first game as Everton manager, Doucoure has more non-penalty goals in the Premier League than any other midfielder. That is a remarkable statistic, and one that shows how much Dyche has been prepared to let Doucoure push forward.
Idrissa Gueye sitting is predictable, but you’d usually expect James Garner to be the advanced member of the midfield three. Dyche has flipped around expectations and it’s paying off massively.
It’s also a complete rebirth for Doucoure at Goodison Park, who must be as grateful for Dyche’s arrival as his manager is for his midfielder’s form. Back in January, Doucoure was banned from training after a clash with Frank Lampard. Lampard was then sacked for Dyche to take over and Doucoure worked his way back into favour. Now he’s the fans’ favourite midfielder.
Read more: Everton’s potential new owners committed to takeover despite points deduction
Luton
Luton are a different opponent in the winter than the autumn, an evolving Premier League side that should be relishing the prospect of proving everyone wrong. At home, there is a fairly simple formula against stronger teams: defend deep, look to cross into the box when they can and get the crowd to complain with such ferocity about every free kick that it piles pressure on the officials. By the end they were chanting “2-1 to the referee” – that referee got no decision wrong all game.
It is fascinating – and alluring – to watch these players grow used to the intricacies of this challenge. Elijah Adebayo scored Luton’s goal and his becoming a particularly useful Premier League centre forward, a one-man band of ball protection and aerial duels. Ross Barkley is loving his professional life again, conducting the tempo amid the storm. The wing-backs, Alfie Doughty and Ryan Giles, are raw but hardworking and as adventurous as possible.
Luton have earned nothing from their assignments against Arsenal and Manchester City this week, but points are not everything in December. The task is to maintain this underdog intensity outside of the fixtures the eyes turned to in the summer. A crisis-ridden Chelsea and half-knackered Newcastle come here before the turn of the year. They can win one of those. They can survive.
Burnley
James Trafford made a huge leap this summer when he signed for Burnley from Manchester City having spent last season in League One. He was also then immediately left high and dry by Burnley’s defending in the autumn which left him badly exposed.
Before this weekend, Trafford had the lowest save percentage of any regular goalkeeper in the Premier League. He deserved better: he’s also the youngest goalkeeper to start more than half of his team’s Premier League games by half a decade.
When interviewing Trafford earlier in the season, he came across as a shy young man but one who has an ability to let form pass him by, good and bad. He knows how quickly this has all happened, knows that he is some way short of peak age and knows that there will be inevitable peaks and troughs. That all strikes as very sensible and far easier said than done.
On Saturday, Trafford finally enjoyed his breakout Premier League performance, a one-man mission to stop Brighton from overturning a lead and making life worse for Burnley after a poor midweek result. He made a sixth of all his saves for the season over the course of 90 minutes.
Sheffield United
Every reason to bring back Chris Wilder was here, as Sheffield United finally did the basics well and realised that gives you every chance of picking up Premier League points at home. A first clean sheet of the season in Wilder’s second game? This is exactly what they needed.
There has been no sweeping change of strategy from Paul Heckingbottom to Wilder. They attempted 35 passes of 30 yards or more – let’s call them long balls – a high over their last seven matches.
They also seemed to be operating slightly higher up the pitch, but then still had 82 touches of the ball in their own penalty area. James McAtee took his chance expertly having squandered a far easier one against Liverpool.
The obvious question is whether Wilder can mould this immediate improvement into s sustained period of form. That is what all three promoted clubs have missed this season: steps in the right direction immediately followed by comprehensive setback.
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