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We either have a one-horse race – if you think Manchester City will now burst into a lead they will not cede – or a three-horse race, but certainly not a two-horse race for the Premier League title.
If that all sounds a little messy and complicated, wait until you see some of the goals from the Emirates as Arsenal handed Liverpool their second league defeat of the season.
Gameweek 23 results
Saturday 3rd February
- Everton 2-2 Spurs
- Brighton 4-1 Crystal Palace
- Burnley 2-2 Fulham
- Newcastle 4-4 Luton
- Sheff Utd 0-5 Aston Villa
Sunday 4th February
- Bournemouth 1-1 Nott’m Forest
- Chelsea 2-4 Wolves
- Man Utd 3-0 West Ham
- Arsenal 3-1 Liverpool
At the bottom, Luton were involved in a manic 4-4 draw at Newcastle, but otherwise it’s as you were because Nottingham Forest and Everton also drew. Aston Villa thrashed Sheffield United and Chris Wilder is unlikely to blame sandwiches or referees this time. Still, it could be worse, Chris – you could be Chelsea.
Liverpool
Perhaps this was just one game too far, the first time that Liverpool have lost a game with 10 men or more since 1 April, 2023. If there is a negative reaction, then these players have earnt a little more trust. Social media will be the natural home for melodramatic opinion – ignore it.
Perhaps Liverpool just made mistakes in the wrong circumstances. Alisson rarely lets shots through his legs, deflected or otherwise. Virgil van Dijk rarely lets the ball bounce and even more rarely panics after doing so. The miscommunication is what broke Liverpool and Arsenal took advantage. It happens.
Perhaps the game was just a little too chaotic. Liverpool often like it that way, because in those moments they back themselves to control the chaos better than their opponents can. But here, without Dominick Szoboszlai, the midfield control was missing.
Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister didn’t quite get a handle on it. Martin Odegaard drifted into the space where the natural No 6 would dominate. Declan Rice did that job and that was probably the difference.
Or perhaps Liverpool finally missed Mohamed Salah. Diogo Jota played on the right and Cody Gakpo played centrally. Gakpo has three league goals in 21 games this season for an attacking title challenger – that is a disappointment. Jota’s goalscoring record against the best opponents is ordinary: one league goal against a side currently in the top six since April 2022, the late winner against Tottenham in April.
They will go again. Nothing ended on Sunday. Jurgen Klopp may even reason that a reminder of what is at stake can be a positive thing. Liverpool face Burnley, Brentford and Forest before they take on Manchester City on 9 March and they can build back their strength. This was a setback, nobody denies that. But it was also the result of several freak events in combination. That will be the mantra this week.
Arsenal
Mikel Arteta is used to not being able to select Gabriel Jesus by now. The Brazilian has started just 37 of 60 Premier League matches for the Gunners since joining from Manchester City for £45m in July 2022 due to knee and hamstring injuries. That’s only two more than Ivan Toney has managed and the Brentford striker was banned for eight months.
Jesus is an excellent footballer, but his two flaws are fitness and finishing. The 26-year-old is a four-time Premier League winner but his inconsistent end product meant he was never Manchester City’s main man. His tendency to pick up aches and strains means he is unlikely to ever become Arsenal’s either. Arsenal will almost certainly buy a top striker in the summer. For the time being, Arteta has found a workable solution with Martin Odegaard and Kai Havertz operating as a floaty front two in and out of possession.
It’s a tactic that Arteta used against Liverpool in the FA Cup last month and one that Jurgen Klopp acknowledged caused his side problems. “It’s difficult to prepare for what Arsenal did tonight,” he said. “In the first half it was a different set-up with Havertz and Odegaard more or less as double No 10s – 4-2-2-2 with wingers wide. [A] massive threat.”
With Jesus absent, Arteta repeated the trick; Liverpool can’t say they weren’t warned. The duo don’t make for a conventional Premier League strike partnership. Liverpool’s centre-backs Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate spent most of the game man-marking no-one but that’s precisely the point. Their job was to search for space, not challenge for headers.
It worked a treat for Bukayo Saka’s opener. Odegaard slunk away from the unsuspecting Van Dijk and played a perfectly cushioned first-time volleyed pass into Havertz’s path after he had freed himself from Konate. Havertz was unable to finish it off, but Saka was on hand to poke home the rebound.
It’s a ploy that suits the notoriously free-spirited Havertz more so than Odegaard, as it provides him with a platform to roam and meander rather than a set role that restricts when and where he can move. Havertz is an unconventional nuisance, neither a sprinter nor a brute, but he is a nuisance nonetheless. His heatmap featured blotches all over the pitch, as though it were tracking an eight-year-old rather than an international footballer.
They had key parts to play off the ball, pressing high and cutting off passing lanes centrally by forming a compact square with their central midfielders. Ordinarily, that might be asking for trouble against a team that contains the crossing qualities of Trent Alexander-Arnold, but he was ineffective and subbed off before the hour. Liverpool struggled to break the lines without Dominik Szoboszlai.
With most teams playing with one striker, centre-backs often take turns dealing with them. Neither Konate nor Van Dijk had that luxury at the Emirates. Konate especially struggled, receiving a late red card after being given two yellow cards for separate fouls on Havertz after being dragged into zones he had no desire to be in. By Oliver Young-Myles
Man City
Play against Brentford on Monday evening.
Aston Villa
This had been a sticky patch for Villa that started with a 1-1 home draw against Sheffield United, a run of five points in five league games that gave Tottenham momentum in the race to catch them up for a top-four place. Unai Emery will hope that fixtures against the worst team in the division have book-ended that difficult spell. Villa don’t face a team in the top six until 9 March.
Did we learn anything new? Perhaps not. But sometimes it is worth being reminded just how beautiful your team can look when everything clicks and everybody is given the time to do as they please. Ollie Watkins has probably the best movement of any Premier League centre forward, and that includes Erling Haaland. He has now reached double figures for goals and assists in the Premier League this season, the first player to do so. Incredibly, he’s the first Villa player to do that in a single season since Dwight Yorke in 1995-96.
Douglas Luiz was given the time to pick passes between opponents – his assist for Watkins was sublime. When allowed to wander free with and without the ball, the Brazilian is one of the most complete midfielders in the country. Sheffield United barely managed to get into the same postcode as him.
But the final word deserves to go to Leon Bailey, who found himself nudged out of the team after the arrival of Moussa Diaby but who has worked to regain his place and offered the competition for places that Emery always believed was necessary for this squad to move up a level.
Of Bailey’s last 11 starts in all competitions, a run stretching back into early October, Villa have lost only once – that was the 3-2 defeat at Old Trafford in the league when Bailey went off with the scores level. He now has 13 goals and assists despite only starting 10 Premier League matches, and he thoroughly deserves to have nipped ahead of Diaby in the queue. These are fine headaches for a manager to wrestle with. Villa are back in rude health.
Tottenham
A case of cockerels coming home to roost. You can point the finger at Guglielmo Vicario, who was indeed weak on both goals and has likely sent an inadvertent memo to Premier League managers about inswinging corners and free-kicks. But Tottenham have repeatedly invited danger late in their league matches this season. You play with fire; you get burnt.
This season, Tottenham have conceded eight goals in second-half stoppage time. That’s more than ever before in a Premier League season. If you reason that the dramatic rise in added time has fuelled such a statistic, there’s more: Tottenham have conceded more late goals than any other team in the division.
The surprise is not that Everton equalised late. The surprise is that anyone could still be surprised.
One reason for overlooking this nasty habit is that it has rarely cost Spurs points. They conceded late against Burnley but won 5-2, late against Palace but won 2-1, late twice against Chelsea but were already losing and had nine men, late against Newcastle but were 4-0 up. But the point stands: if you allow your opponents to build pressure and take shots during extended periods of stoppage time, at some point you will regret it. And Tottenham have dropped points from winning positions in general.
But I think any suggestion that this is an indication of Ange Postecoglou’s tactical naivety is a little wide of the mark. In fact, you could argue the opposite. As Tottenham fell deeper towards their own goal as added time approached, Postecoglou introduced a central defender (Radu Dragusin) for a central midfielder (Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg), a move intended to make them more secure. And yet, as the later set-piece showed, that clearly wasn’t the case.
Man Utd
I think Erik ten Hag has finally found his ideal front three and he should not be dissuaded from it. For the visit of Aston Villa on Boxing Day, Ten Hag started Alejandro Garnacho on the right wing and Garnacho scored twice with Rasmus Hojlund scored the other, his first Premier League goal.
The next league game, a trip to Nottingham Forest, Ten Hag went back to Antony on the right wing and United lost, with Antony largely terrible throughout. That seems to have made up his mind for good.
Garnacho has played on the right in each of the last three league games with Marcus Rashford on the left. United have scored nine goals in those three games.
It works because Garnacho is a) direct, rather than stopping and turning back like the man he has replaced, and b) he is prepared to go down both sides of the full-back, either stretching the game wide and allowing Rashford to drift closer to Hojlund or cutting inside and opening up the pitch. When he does that, a short pass is always on to Bruno Fernandes.
And here is the evidence that it works for everyone. From the start of the season to that Villa win, Manchester United played 18 league games and in only one of those did more than one of their front three score in the same game (the 3-0 win at Everton when Antony also didn’t start but Rashford played on the right and Anthony Martial central).
In the four games since then when Garnacho has played on the right and Rashford on the left (and Antony on the bench), the following has happened: Garnacho and Hojlund have both scored in the same game, Rashford and Hojlund have both scored in the same game, Rashford and Hojlund have scored in the same game again and then Garnacho and Hojlund have scored in the same game again. This is how you distract from any defensive issues.
West Ham
The issue with signing Kalvin Phillips on a straight loan deal with no option to buy is that it limited his use to the club and therefore raised the question of whether he could hit the ground running. West Ham could hardly afford for it to take six games for Phillips to get up to speed, given that they only had him for four months.
And yet, how could Phillips not be rusty? He had played 89 minutes of Premier League football for Manchester City this season and 290 minutes last season. He had started three league games in 18 months and this is an intense league at its most frantic in defensive midfield.
So it has proven. Phillips started badly against Bournemouth, surprisingly used as a starter but handing Dominic Solanke the ball for an early goal and then looking half-paced for the rest of the match. Against Manchester United he only came on at half-time, but again he was robbed of possession for a goal soon after and again he looked behind the pace of the game.
None of this is his fault, but West Ham have trophies to fight for and Europe to try and qualify for. They have paid a loan fee for Phillips and are also reported to be paying his £140,000-a-week wages in full. That makes him an expensive substitute and thus they want him to be involved as soon as possible. But in involving him as soon as possible, it has already cost West Ham goals and points. It is a conundrum to solve.
Brighton
In his pre-match press conference ahead of the most important home game of the season, Roberto De Zerbi was in a spiky mood. He stopped short of expressing his disappointment in Brighton’s inability to get any late business done (a move for Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall failed to materialise), but the telltale signs were there: pointing out that he’s having to pick young, inexperienced players, insisting that he is not the one in charge of transfer business, expressing his lack of surprise that Brighton have encountered rough patches.
Forgive the over-analysis, but De Zerbi does seem to be preparing to entertain offers for one of the various high-level jobs that will be available this summer. After Xabi Alonso, it is De Zerbi’s name that has been mentioned most often. Given his struggles recently to organise Brighton’s defence effectively and their lack of goal in their previous three matches, the M23 Derby felt mighty significant for Brighton’s manager.
This was much more like it. Brighton recorded their biggest win over Palace since January 1956 thanks to a return to the style of football that has been lacking of late. Your defensive organisation becomes far less of a problem when your pressing is forcing mistakes and your opponents cannot relieve the pressure. The standout statistic was this: Brighton scored three goals in the first 34 minutes before Palace had even touched the ball in Brighton’s penalty area.
Newcastle
Eddie Howe has got a lot right at Newcastle United, but his inaction regarding the club’s left-back situation is becoming alarming and it cost Newcastle two points on Saturday. Howe stands accused by some supporters of not being proactive enough with his substitutions. Here was more evidence for them.
From the first 10 minutes, it was clear that Dan Burn was struggling against Chiedozie Ogbene. He managed to avoid conceding an early penalty after Ogbene outpaced him, but was running in treacle in pursuit of the winger. That penalty would come later in the game and, by then, Ogbene had easily established himself as the game’s best player.
But how was this a surprise? Ogbene has pace and skill and trickery and his direct, everything a slow full-back fears. Ogbene had been making Burn look a little foolish all afternoon.
But Howe waited until the 65th minute, when the damage had been done and the score was 2-4, before making the change.
Immediately Luton found it harder to get Ogbene in behind, both because Tino Livramento is quicker than Burn and because he looks to push on more and thus forced Ogbene to defend.
Howe has certainly been hampered by injuries across his squad this season. But, at left-back, he really doesn’t have that excuse. On the bench on Saturday were Livramento, a full-back who Newcastle paid more than £30m for, and Lewis Hall, who they have committed £30m towards (and it now seems that Howe is not convinced by). Even if this pair are players for the future, they’re evidently better equipped to deal with a quick, direct winger than Burn.
Wolves
The perfect afternoon. I was going to write that this was evidence that Matheus Cunha and Pedro Neto are the best attacking combination in the bottom half, but Wolves have now moved above Chelsea and into tenth. They are having the most wonderful time under Gary O’Neil.
But I wanted to talk a little more about Neto, whose injury between late October and mid-January has enabled people to overlook what a ridiculous season he is having. It might also have dissuaded some clubs from trying to tempt Wolves with a financial offer in the transfer window, for which supporters will be mighty grateful.
The most assists ever in a Premier League season was set first by Thierry Henry for Arsenal and then later matched by Kevin De Bruyne in 2019-20 – both created 20 league goals. We are now in early February and Neto has eight assists, so he probably isn’t going to trouble that record. But he’s also only played in 14 league games and one of those was as a substitute. Add in nine more matches and his current form and Neto would have got close.
This is now the third consecutive season that Neto has been badly affected by injury. In each of the last two (14 starts last season and 13 appearances in total the season before), Neto has contributed one assist in total. The worry was that the flame may have been dimmed. This campaign has been a glorious evaporation of that suspicion. Now please stay fit.
Chelsea
You don’t have to look far for a calamity at Stamford Bridge, after one of the sloppiest home performances in an age. To turn a 1-0 home lead into 4-1 deficit, largely through their own lapses in concentration and wastefulness, might just rank as a new low in this farcical (and farcically expensive) season.
It’s all so obvious. This is a team packed full will those who have joined over the last 18 months, many of whom are having to settle in a new league and new club with new teammates under a new manager.
Nicolas Jackson misses chances. Mykhailo Mudryk misplaces passes. Malo Gusto dives into a challenge in his own penalty area. An experienced goalkeeper doesn’t make many saves and seems to stay too close to his own line.
This is what young players do, three things well and one badly. And when you have eight players in the same team like this you make enough mistakes to be punished badly. This was Chelsea’s worst home defeat since losing 4-1 to Brentford in April 2022.
Then the team was stale: Marcos Alonso, Hakim Ziyech, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Cesar Azpilicueta, Timo Werner. Now it is too raw and the effect is the same. Todd Boehly brought a circus; home supporters are growing sick of the clown show.
The saddest thing for the neutral is how those players who we delighted in witnessing fulfilling their potential are being dragged down by this unhelpful mania. Moises Caicedo was spectacular to watch at Brighton. On Sunday, he was robbed of possession for one goal, gave away a dangerous free-kick on the edge of the box, did exactly the same two minutes later to get booked and generally looked to be overpowered by the inability of teammates to manage the game’s tempo. Just a £115m, British record signing being made to look average.
Bournemouth
A familiar nagging issue. Andoni Iraola’s football is often wonderful to watch, but if there is a weakness it is that its high-intensity nature, which can unsettle opponents with the game in the balance, is not necessarily suited to seeing out a lead. In those moments, you want your team to control possession and reduce risk. But Iraola’s football delights in risk (and reward).
Bournemouth supporters wouldn’t have it any other way. Their team has 27 points, 12 less than in the whole of last season. They only require seven more league goals to match their entire 2022-23 total. They are fun and they are daring and they take risks and that’s just about all they wanted here when they can do all that without being in danger of going down.
But you take the rough with the smooth. Bournemouth have taken the lead 14 times in the league this season, more often than Brighton and one less than Aston Villa. Iraola’s team have also only won half of those matches. If they can work on a second, “control” gear for next season, they could be a top-half team.
Fulham
We need to talk about Fulham’s away form, a topic that would have been postponed had Bernd Leno not come wandering out of his goal to claim a cross that he never had a chance of reaching or if Fulham had reacted quickly enough to Burnley’s counter-attacking threat down the left wing. This was not a good day for Timothy Castagne.
Since the opening day of the season, Fulham have won precisely zero away matches. They did at least take a point at Turf Moor, to end a run of five straight defeats, but then Burnley have the worst home record in the Premier League and they squandered a two-goal lead so you’ll forgive the deliberate ignorance of any positive spin.
There is a slight irony to all this. In the pantheon of stereotypical “difficult places to go”, Fulham would probably rank in the bottom five of the 92 league teams. That sense is only aided by the current fallout between home supporters and their club over extravagant match and season ticket prices that is provoking public protest from those who believe that they are being exploited.
And yet it is only Fulham’s home form that is keeping their heads above water. Only Sheffield United have taken fewer away points this season and they are not a side that anyone should use as a reasonable judge of their own performance. Something else to point out: Fulham have already played all of the current bottom six at home.
Crystal Palace
I’m almost certain that we have said this before, said it recently and may well say it again, but this was surely the nadir of Crystal Palace’s season. A brief rundown of what went wrong, other than just “everything”:
- 1) After conceding in the first minute against Sheffield United and so after a more sensible start, concede after three minutes – “Keep it tight, lads”.
- 2) A complete inability to deal with pressure on the ball when they have it in their own third of the pitch, leading to both a failure to touch the ball in the opposition penalty area until they are 3-0 down and their new signing being robbed of possession and conceding as a result.
- 3) Eberechi Eze being injured and thus not featuring.
- 4) Michael Olise only being fit enough for the bench, being brought on even though the game was lost and subsequently aggravating said injury.
- 5) Marc Guehi going off injured.
- 6) Suffering their worst defeat to their biggest rivals since Elvis Presley had his first top 20 hit.
- 7) Their assistant manager having to pull away Joachim Andersen from a blazing row with away supporters after the full-time whistle, who had spent much of the game protesting vocally about the club’s ownership and direction.
This must be the end of Roy Hodgson’s time in charge. Patrick Vieira was sacked after an away defeat to Brighton (that time they only lost 1-0) and Hodgson may well have to suffer the same fate to shift the current funk. The younger players seem to be kept on the fringes of the squad and blamed when things go wrong. The best senior players are injured or coming back from injury.
Without Guehi, Eze and Olise for any extended period of time, there is nothing to suggest that Palace will collect more than a point per game between now and May. If that might just be enough to stay up, given the form of two promoted clubs and potential points deductions for others, it is no way to live. Something has to change.
Brentford
Play against Manchester City on Monday evening.
Nott’m Forest
Every Nottingham Forest supporter knows the challenge for Nuno Espirito Santo in keeping them up (and that is now the only ambition given a potential points deduction). Steve Cooper largely succeeded in making them defensively solid but struggled to create chances in the final third. Nuno had made them more potent in attack, but Forest had also conceded too many goals – 12 in their first six games in all competitions under his management.
Nuno was never going to like that. His success at Wolves came through a safety-first mentality. They scored 47 goals in their first Premier League season when finishing seventh, and scored 51 goals the following season. He did not arrive at the City Ground to get involved in chaotic encounters and yet he has already been involved in three 3-2 results.
At Bournemouth on Sunday, we got a potential glimpse at the answer. Forest set up in an ostensibly attacking shape, with two wide players flanking Taiwo Awoniyi and Morgan Gibbs-White as a No 10 with licence to stay high up the pitch. That leaves a lot of work for the two central midfielders, now Ryan Yates and Nicolas Dominguez with Orel Mangala sold and Ibrahim Sangare still at Afcon. Luckily, both of them love winning back the ball.
Nuno counteracts this attacking shape by aiming to make Forest control possession more against their peers. Arsenal were allowed to dominate territory and possession. But Forest were happy to play with the ball against Brentford, Manchester United and Bournemouth. That control is how you stop getting too ragged and exposed.
It might work too – Forest had the better chances against Brentford and Bournemouth. But only if Forest improve at defending set pieces. Against Brentford, when they scored twice, they were undone by corners.
Bournemouth aren’t even a particularly effective set-piece team, but they still scored with their first corner against Forest. One unmarked man at the front post and one at the back with six Forest shirts in between them. These are sort of habits that keep a team in deep trouble.
Luton
Welcome to the next age of Luton Town’s debut Premier League season. In their last 181 minutes, Rob Edwards’ team have scored 28 per cent of all their season league goals. Since losing 3-1 at Brentford on 3 December, Luton have scored three times against Arsenal, three times against Sheffield United, twice against Chelsea, four times against Brighton and now four times against Newcastle.
Every time you think that you have worked out the strengths of this Luton team, and thus where they might be most weak too, they shift into a different mode and surprise you again. Elijah Adebayo is now a complete Premier League forward, aided by Chiedozie Ogbene brilliance on the right flank. Opposition managers are expecting Luton to be dogged and determined and defensively sound. They have become the opposite of all three and yet this is somehow an emphatic compliment.
Against Newcastle, Luton scored four goals in a top-flight away game for the first time since 1987 – that is a demonstration of how long they have been away from these climes. They have now scored four goals in successive top-flight matches for the first time since 1982 and then the second result was a 4-4 draw too.
Even those Luton supporters who were certain that their team was being unfairly cast as also-rans didn’t expect this: free-scoring, ambitious and glorious fun. They are better than Nottingham Forest as it stands, even before a points deduction. They can do this.
Everton
The most surprising aspect of this Everton season under Sean Dyche is not that they are a better team away from home than at Goodison Park, although that is certainly striking. Everton’s point at home to Tottenham continued their one per game average. Only four Premier League teams have taken more points per away game.
Instead, this draw was unusual because Everton trailed and did not lose. Before Saturday, their record in such circumstances was appalling: played 11, lost 10, drew one. The relief at the late equaliser was in part because Goodison has grown used to expecting resilience and seeing all hope wasted.
That isn’t what we would usually expect from a Dyche team, particularly after a full pre-season under his stewardship. At Burnley, Dyche prided himself on a never-say-we’re-beaten spirit that seemed likely to combine well with Everton’s intense, energetic central midfielders.
If the opposite has usually been true, this is now a chance to build. The mood of mutiny against the Premier League at Goodison really is something to behold, chants of “corruption” every time a simple throw-in decision goes against them. However you can whip your home support into a frenzy is worth taking and it really did seem to force Tottenham backwards in those last 10 minutes. Resilience is a necessary ingredient of coping through adversity. Everton must stick with it.
Burnley
You have to close at least one eye to focus on the positivity, of course. Burnley have won two games in all competition since 3 October and one of those was in the reverse of this fixture. Fulham remain the only non-promoted team that Vincent Kompany’s side have bettered all season and they ruined all chances of repeating the trick during a rotten first half. They must drastically improve their form and hope for sizable points deductions for others as their only saviour.
But let’s look up for a change. On Saturday, Burnley fell behind in a game for the 17th time in 23 league games this season. On the first 16 occasions that had happened, Burnley had lost the match, a record of zero points from a possible 48. This time, they did come back. It is the first time that Burnley have turned around a two-goal deficit to take anything from a Premier League game since December 2014, 174 matches ago.
To that we must add the identity of their saviour. Make no mistake: signing David Datro Fofana on loan from Chelsea was a coup for Burnley. This is a forward who scored against Napoli in the Champions League for Union Berlin this season and has been desperate for regular minutes since joining Chelsea for around £10m last summer.
In 26 minutes on Saturday, Fofana might have established himself as Burnley’s best shot at staying up. He has had two shots as a Burnley player. He has scored two goals. Twice he was in the perfect place to take advantage of defensive uncertainty. Twice he made an opponent pay. Boy, have Burnley missed that.
Sheff Utd
I don’t know if Chris Wilder thought that claiming referees were biased against Sheffield United, using the ridiculous example of an assistant referee eating a sandwich in front of him as supposed evidence of a lack of respect, was a clever means of creating a siege mentality or simply the desperate, forlorn last roll of the dice, but he know looks even more foolish than he did when he said it.
To suggest that refereeing decisions are in any way a significant factor in Sheffield United being bottom of the Premier League and without any obvious hope of staying up with more than three months of the season remaining is wildly inaccurate to the point of nonsense conspiracy theory (which is exactly what Wilder was spouting). They were ill-prepared for Premier League survival at the start of the season and they are still ill-prepared now. Signing Ben Brereton Diaz and Mason Holgate may make a small difference, but it won’t be enough.
You wonder if Wilder already wishes that he hadn’t come back. The draw of unfinished business and Premier League management were clearly strong, but he hasn’t just proven himself unable to improve this team to a point that there is a chance of staying up. Over the last few weeks, they have got worse: 15 goals conceded in four games, three of which were at home.
Supporters will blame the players, albeit while understating just how much of a difference a complete absence of belief makes. Wilder’s return was supposed to cause a shift in that too, whether as good cop or bad – it hasn’t worked. They are struggling to believe that they are good enough because all evidence points against it.
And Wilder too is making mistakes. Against Aston Villa, he switched to a back three, presumably to offer more penalty-box resistance. A central midfield pair of Andre Brooks and Vini Souza (one in their first season in England and the other a young academy graduate with no senior league career starts before this season) were asked to cope with Douglas Luiz, Boubacar Kamara, Yorui Tielemans and John McGinn. If that sounds like two free men at any one time, you pretty much have the story of the first half.
The other lesson: extra defenders do not make Sheffield United better at defending because nothing is. They have now conceded 59 goals in 23 league games this season. That is the most of any English club in a top-flight season since England won the World Cup in 1966. Hey, maybe this means we win the Euros?
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