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Arsenal aren’t going away. Mikel Arteta’s team can’t stop scoring and are suffocating every opponent with a degree of ease, moving two points behind Liverpool at the top. They were matched – in points terms at least – by Manchester City’s 1-0 win at Bournemouth, led again by Phil Foden.
Burnley and Sheffield United both lost without scoring because that’s what happens every weekend. Everton made some headway but will be kicking themselves for conceding a late equaliser. Forest barely kicked anything in an opening 40 minutes during which they conceded three times at Villa.
Scroll down for my verdict on every team (listed in table order)…
Gameweek 26 results
Saturday 24th February
- Aston Villa 4-2 Nott’m Forest
- Brighton 1-1 Everton
- Crystal Palace 3-0 Burnley
- Man Utd 1-2 Fulham
- Bournemouth 0-1 Man City
- Arsenal 4-1 Newcastle
Sunday 25th February
Liverpool
No league game due to the Carabao Cup final.
Manchester City
It has flown largely under the radar, and I’m not quite sure why, but Phil Foden is having the best season of his career to date. While Erling Haaland continues to stutter in front of goal, Kevin De Bruyne works his way back to full fitness and Jack Grealish’s injury frustrations continue, Foden is the one leading City in three competitions.
Foden’s league goal and assist record has been remarkably consistent: 14 in 2020-21, 14 again in 2021-22 and then 16 last season. He’s started 24 league games so far this season and already matched that high of 16. For a creative player, it’s surprising that Foden has already posted his highest total of assists in a league season. And yes, he is still only 23.
The difference this season is that Foden is more central, both tactically and in terms of the extra responsibility to act as the creative force. He’s taking shots and creating chances at a faster rate than ever before and he’s having touches in the penalty area more often too. The relationship with Haaland isn’t quite there yet, but Foden’s late runs into the box are a nightmare for defences to deal with because they spend so long doubling up on Haaland.
Arsenal
Declan Rice and Jorginho have only started two Premier League games together since the start of December, but they might also be the two most complete performances across that period: 3-1 home win over Liverpool and the 4-1 home win over Newcastle.
On Saturday evening, Mikel Arteta tried something different. Usually when Rice and Jorginho play together, Arsenal operate with two holding midfielders (or double pivot, to use the modern football lexicon). The theory is that the defensive protection allows the two full-backs – most notably Oleksandr Zinchenko – to push high up the pitch and create overlaps with the safety net in place.
But since Jakub Kiwior came into the team (and has performed excellently), Arteta could tweak that plan. With Kiwior a more natural defender, Arsenal no longer need the pair of holding midfielders. Against Newcastle, Jorginho stayed deep and Rice played as more of a traditional central midfielder, thus asking him to get high up the pitch and play passes between the lines.
After the game, Martin Odegaard explained that he no longer needed to drop as deep to do exactly this. Arsenal changed three roles in one.
Rice had 30 touches of the ball in the final third of the pitch, his second highest figure of the season. He also failed to have a single touch of the ball in his team’s penalty area for the first time in a Premier League game since December 2022, evidence of the lessening defensive responsibilities.
As Odegaard alluded to, he was expected to be less dominant over Arsenal’s tempo (that was Rice’s job) but instead could stay higher up the pitch and create danger closer to goal. Odegaard attempted only 35 passes in 75 minutes (he attempted 118 in a game against West Ham earlier this month). Arsenal had complete control during the first 70 minutes, during which they scored four times.
Read more: Mikel Arteta’s big game tactic has made Arsenal look unstoppable
Aston Villa
Ollie Watkins is having the season of his life and must now be an automatic pick to be the backup striker to Harry Kane in Gareth Southgate’s squad? He is now one goal behind his highest ever total in the Premier League (set last season). It seems remarkable that this is only his fourth season in the top flight.
Watkins’ goalscoring will take the headlines, and with good reason. Unai Emery’s plan to keep his striker close to the penalty area at all times has worked brilliantly – Watkins is taking 3.14 shots per game this season, the most he has averaged in any league season since Brentford in the Championship in 2017-18. If he only needs one goal to match last season’s total, more instructive is that he only needs four shots to match his shot total and he’s already surpassed his shots and shots on target from 2021-22.
And yet it’s Watkins’ chance creation that stands out most. While drifting outside the penalty area may seem like a strategy to increase his creativity, the opposite has become true. By being in the box, and with Villa having multiple players overlapping and making late runs (Bailey, Luiz, Ramsey, Diaby, Tielemans et al), Watkins actually becomes a creative outlet close to goal.
Think basketball, and the player who plays the set-up shot for the slam dunk. So far this season, 23 different players have created more chances than Watkins in the Premier League. But the average quality of chance that Watkins creates, because he is close to goal and usually simply laying it off to a teammate, is like no other player in the division. And so no Premier League player has assisted more goals than him. Before 2023-24, Watkins had never made more than six goals in any Championship or Premier League season. He’s on 10 and counting.
Tottenham
No league game due to the Carabao Cup final.
Manchester United
Over the last few weeks, as Manchester United have played their way into some form, most of us have stayed pretty quiet. It wasn’t that we were denying nor even ignoring an upturn in results that had threatened to bring the question of Champions League qualification into focus again. It was that we didn’t quite believe what the results were telling us. Were Manchester United a good bad team or a bad good team?
It didn’t really help that it was difficult to work out which patterns of United’s play were deliberate and which were as a result of their failure to control their own destiny. Sure, wingers occasionally broke forward, central midfielders often hung about with intent on the edge of the box and Rasmus Hojlund began to flourish. But what was the classic Erik ten Hag performance?
Maybe it’s this: a limp, lethargic home defeat to Fulham during which his team deserved nothing, got something and then lost it all again because every time they meet an opponent that is organised and reasonably efficient on the counter attack, that is exactly what happens.
One of the most frustrating elements of Ten Hag’s tenure is his steadfast refusal to accept culpability – what is intended as self-preservation actually comes across as the opposite. On Saturday, Ten Hag blamed injuries for the defeat and us and supporters to focus on “the bigger picture”. Presumably that bigger picture isn’t big enough to include a new minority owner with big ambitions who might soon get sick of watching this one step forward, one step back existence.
The bigger picture is that Manchester United allow their opponents to take shots with embarrassing ease. Their current rate is 15.9 shots per game, which would have been the second worst record in the Premier League last season and may well end up being the third worst record this season ahead of only Sheffield United and Luton Town.
The bigger picture is that Ten Hag’s talk of injuries being the explanation loses all weight because this has been the problem all season. They allowed 40 shots in their opening two games of the season and their back five for that opening game against Wolves (23 shots faced) was Onana, Wan Bissaka, Shaw, Varane and Martinez. Injuries haven’t caused this; United’s lack of structure in midfield combined with a lack of pressing in the final third and a deep defensive line in their own third have caused this.
The bigger picture is that Ten Hag has had many months in charge and that we don’t really know what he’s trying to do or how likely he is ever to achieve it. The bigger picture is that there are component parts of this midfield who have thrived in coherent systems before their time with Ten Hag but who now look unfit for purpose.
Brighton
A familiar tale of dominant possession, many more shots than their opponents and yet lucky to even get a point, but the manner of Lewis Dunk’s equaliser merits investigation. Pascal Gross had the composure to twist and turn rather than sending an aimless cross into the box with his left foot. The eventual delivery was majestic.
But what’s new? There may be higher-profile players in the Premier League enjoying wonderful form, but has anyone been as consistent as Gross over the last three months? Nobody has more Premier League assists than him this season. At the age of 32, Gross is pushing for a place in Germany’s Euro 2024 squad.
Gross is the ultimate club servant and the perfect teacher’s pet. This season alone he has started league games at right-back, left-back, defensive midfield, central midfield and as an advanced central midfielder and last season he played four games as a centre-forward. No player in the division offers as much tactical flexibility.
The magic is that Gross is able to produce in all of them. Against Sheffield United last weekend, he created eight chances and completed more than 100 passes with an accuracy of over 90 per cent. This weekend he created another six chances and no player on the pitch made more tackles. He drifts right and forward but never leaves his central responsibilities. He controls the tempo of the match but is also able to produce magic moments. His assuredness in tight spaces is remarkable and so is his work rate.
Wolverhampton Wanderers
Proof that ugly wins are worth as much as pretty ones. For all their progress under Gary O’Neil this season – this win took them up to the heady heights of eighth to ignite ludicrous, but not unfounded, dreams of European qualification – Wolves have repeatedly struggled in fixtures against supposedly weaker sides who have been happy to sacrifice possession, play on the counter and use set pieces.
Wolves lost 2-1 at Bramall Lane. They drew 1-1 at Kenilworth Road. They drew at home to Nottingham Forest and lost at home to Brentford. They lost at Fulham and Crystal Palace by identical 3-2 scorelines. On Sunday, they creaked and looked like they might crumble under Sheffield United’s second-half aerial attack.
During these moments, it is as if Wolves supporters can’t quite believe all of this – the gentler season that any could imagine, the surge up the bottom half, the move to the top eight – is sustainable. As Wolves looked to pass out from the back, they grumbled and groaned. It’s as if one goal conceded through losing possession and the whole house of cards tumbles to the floor.
That is why O’Neil was so happy in his post-match interview. It was gutsy and at times it was grim. He recognised the frustration of supporters but knows that by holding on in these types of games he begins to persuade them to keep the faith. You have to prove that you can win every which way you need to, by running over Tottenham and by standing tall when Sheffield United throw punches at you and each other.
Newcastle
The four-game unbeaten run, itself feeling constructed on sand thanks to high-scoring draws against Luton and Bournemouth, is over in similar style. Newcastle have now conceded 23 goals in their last eight league games. Last season, they conceded 33 league goals in their entire campaign.
This starts in midfield. Lewis Miley and Sean Longstaff are triers and overachievers both (certainly according to preseason expectation), but they were utterly outclassed by Arsenal’s passing and movement. Of all the players that Newcastle might miss most, it’s Joelinton’s work off the ball, dynamism and general tone-setting energy that leaves the biggest hole when it is absent.
Miley and Longstaff have had no choice but to play and play and Eddie Howe has had no choice but to pick them. The former is a 17-year-old kid who needs the break he can’t have. Add to that Sven Botman’s form fading, Alexander Isak not looking match fit and the ball rarely sticking to Miguel Almiron and Arsenal scoring four times is no shock. They could have had more.
That’s all still a little easy, though. You can’t blame everything on missing a player or two or three when the problem seems to be a complete shift in the personality of the team. During the first half, when Newcastle failed to even take a single shot, there was no strategy to make life difficult for Arsenal. Where have the guts of last season gone, when Newcastle were a ballache to play against even when they weren’t at their best?
West Ham
Play Brentford on Monday evening.
Chelsea
No league game due to the Carabao Cup final.
Fulham
Fulham fully merited their first away league win since their opening weekend, but its source was of real intrigue. Alex Iwobi provided the finish past a motionless Andre Onana, but the grunt work was done by Adama Traore running for 40 yards with the ball before playing the pass.
This was Traore’s first assist in the Premier League since 4 February 2023, a 3-0 home win for Wolves over Liverpool. Then, it felt as if Traore’s expiring contract at Wolves may still lead to the promotion that he always felt he deserved because every manager adores a game-changing wide player who is lightning fast and loves running at defenders. It never really happened.
Traore joined Fulham last summer. He started the season on the bench, suffered a hamstring injury that then included a setback midway through his recovery and is only just fit again. For players of Traore’s type, serious muscle issues can easily sound as a career death knell.
So it was lovely to see Traore come on for only his third league appearance of longer than 10 minutes this season, and change the game in Fulham’s favour after his introduction. The initial promise of the last decade may have given way to something a little less special than Traore would have liked, but if he can stay fit then he’s an exceptional option off the bench against tired opponents. More of this, please.
Crystal Palace
All hail Oliver Glasner, but all hail Jordan Ayew more. On Monday night, Sky Sports’ cameras showed a replay of Glasner at Goodison Park, capturing his astonished reaction to Ayew’s brilliant finish that eventually earned Palace a point. Now Glasner already knows how vital his ageing forward will be.
This is not an easy period for Ayew – he was booked on Monday evening for displaying his visible frustration at being left isolated and asked to hold off three opponents just to create a chance or take a shot. With Michael Olise and Eberechi Eze, Ayew is able to drop into pockets of space and demand the ball, or stay high up the pitch with confidence that one or both of that pair will carry it 20 or 30 yards forward. Without them, Ayew has to be a one-man band.
There is potential help on the way. Roy Hodgson’s lack of faith in Palace’s younger players was maddening to supporters who saw no other way to relieve the gloom. The sight of Matheus Franca and Naouirou Ahamada playing more than 30 minutes each on Saturday, helping 1-0 become 3-0, is enough to believe in this new project.
But Ayew is still the difference maker here. It was his sumptuous cross that assisted Chris Richards’ opening goal and his slide that killed the game off three minutes later. His eight shot-creating actions was Ayew’s highest contribution in his entire Premier League career. In the space of five days, he has probably secured Palace’s Premier League status.
Read more: Four things Glasner got right for Crystal Palace that Hodgson got wrong
Bournemouth
Bournemouth have played Manchester City 14 times in the Premier League era and they have lost all 14 matches by an aggregate scoreline of 45-7. No home supporter on Saturday evening is going to be gutted that Bournemouth lost to the reigning champions when that’s exactly what always happens.
And this was a different Bournemouth performance. In November, they lost 6-1 at the Etihad because Andoni Iraola’s high press was picked apart far too easily. They weren’t perfect on Saturday, but they also caused City problems in possession and counter attacked at speed. Their 13 shots was the highest number that City have allowed in a league game since their 1-0 defeat at Villa Park on 6 December. That is a moral success, if not a sporting one.
Bournemouth’s problem was a familiar one over this seven-game winless run in the Premier League. It was also the same problem as they encountered in early season, albeit then it combined with an unfamiliarity with Iraola’s pressing demands. Bournemouth’s season has been a very strange one: six wins in eight league games between 28 October and Boxing Day; no win in 16 games before and after it.
That problem? Finishing chances. During that mid-season run – that has basically kept Bournemouth up – they scored 21 goals from 129 shots. Before and since then, Bournemouth have scored 12 goals from 204 shots. Despite that two-month purple patch, Bournemouth rank 15th for shooting efficiency (goals minus expected goals).
Over their last seven winless games (that have included fixtures against Liverpool, Tottenham, Manchester City and Newcastle), Bournemouth have scored six times but attempted 103 shots. They have underperformed their xG in every game and underperformed it by at least 0.5 in four of the seven. The good news? It’s Burnley, Sheffield United and Luton up next.
Brentford
Play West Ham on Monday evening.
Nottingham Forest
Managers make mistakes, but Nuno Espirito Santo refused to accept that picking Moussa Niakhate at left-back was one of them. Sadly, he’s surely wrong.
Losing Nuno Tavares to a medium-term injury, to coincide with the return of three players (Ibrahim Sangare, Ola Aina, Willy Boly) from the Africa Cup of Nations all who are now injured, rather sums up Forest’s season. Again the defence had to change. Again Forest struggled to cope.
But there are ways of coping, and Niakhate is not a left-back. Leon Bailey was repeatedly able to expose his unfamiliarity in the role during the first half. More often than not, it dragged a central defender over to help him, thus leaving Ollie Watkins too much space in the penalty area.
Forest looked more comfortable during the second half, when Harry Toffolo (an actual left-back!) played there and Niakhate moved centrally.
This is important because Tavares will be out for a few weeks and Aina is still nursing an injury. In their next two league games, Forest face Liverpool and Brighton. The former have Mohamed Salah and the latter use wingers to drive at full-backs.
If Nuno is true to his word that picking Niakhate was the right call, the natural defender is going to have to have the fortnight of his life. The alternative is for Nuno to switch to the back three that he used at Wolves (but has thus far stayed away from at Forest).
Everton
I’m aware that it sounds counterintuitive to complain about finishing after Everton failed to win because they could not defend their penalty area against 10 men. Jack Harrison should have done better to stop Gross’ cross into the box and Dunk, the obvious aerial threat, should not have been permitted to jump unaided to head past Jordan Pickford.
But that misses the point. Just as on Monday evening against Palace, Everton create so much pressure for their defenders through their incapability to take their chances and thus create breathing room. If that continues, and they rely upon freak finishes and set pieces to score 90 per cent of their goals, Everton will make it tight without a significant points reprieve.
The numbers are bleak. Last season, across the entire campaign, Everton recorded the worst xG underperformance in the Premier League (they scored 13.2 goals fewer than we would expect according to the quality of their chances). So far this season, Everton are bottom again with -10.0.
Dominic Calvert-Lewin is the headline maker for all the wrong reasons, now without a goal since 29 October. But Beto, Arnaut Danjuma and James Garner are all also significantly underperforming in the same area. Garner has had presentable chances in each of the last two games and failed to strike either cleanly.
The problem is not missing golden chances (although that does occasionally happen to Everton, as it does to everyone). The issue is not really Calvert-Lewin, although he gets the blame. Instead, it’s one of decision-making and creativity in open play.
Everton have had 352 shots this season, ranking ninth in the division, but so, so many of these opportunities are half-chances. You can spot it immediately when watching them play: a cross-shot here, a glancing header from 12 yards there, a driven shot from outside the area after a clearance everywhere. Everton don’t have expert finishers, so they need to create high-value chances. That doesn’t happen often enough.
Luton Town
No league game due to the Carabao Cup final.
Burnley
After another dreadful, optimism-free league result, a broken Vincent Kompany was asked whether he believed that Burnley’s chances of staying up had now been extinguished with almost a third of the season remaining.
“The belief is not going to change, definitely,” Kompany said. “There’s 250,000,000 who play football in the world so the odds of getting into the Premier League is so small as a player. Smaller than staying up, so the belief will remain.”
So Burnley’s manager believes that his team have a greater chance of staying up than one in 250 million – we can just about agree with that. They have also won two league games since 3 October, taken a single point all season against a team currently in the top half and have conceded 16 goals in their last five matches.
Burnley’s defending was – and this sounds like nonsense – their stronger suit in early season. There are still four teams who allow more shots. But they are increasingly incapable of using central midfielders to protect the central defenders and teams are now getting in behind the full-backs too easily.
The diagnosis? A desperate need to push players further forward in search of some degree of attacking impetus. For a team that scored 87 times in the Championship last season, Burnley’s goalscoring record is appalling. They attempt to play progressive football and yet only Sheffield United have taken fewer shots. They suffer long spells of matches when they can barely pass their way out of their own half, let alone create chances.
And it’s getting worse. This season in the Premier League, there have been seven occasions when a team has failed to register a shot on target during a match. Not only do Burnley account for three of the seven, all of them have been since Christmas.
Sheffield United
When Chris Wilder was appointed for the second time as Sheffield United manager, he used a boxing analogy to urge his new players to fight for their Premier League lives.
“It’s not about smashing people all over the place and getting booked or sent off,” Wilder said. “It’s about asking questions physically. If you sit on the ropes for four or five rounds then someone is going to land on you. You’ve got to swing some punches as well.”
When Wilder spoke of throwing punches, I’m not exactly sure that he meant this. In the aftermath of Wolves’ winning goal at Molineux on Sunday, Vinicius Souza and Jack Robinson came to blows in Sheffield United’s half. Robinson was clearly angry at Souza’s lack of effort in tracking back and did not hide his frustration. Souza took offence and the pair seemed to have a brief scuffle. VAR looked at the incident and decided that no further action was needed.
No manager wants to see players on the same team risking both getting sent off for fighting with each other, but you suspect that Wilder may treat it with a wry smile. Far too much of Sheffield United’s miserable season seems to have been acquiesced by a group of players who probably aren’t up to the task but have rolled over for opponent after opponent. Anger is better than acceptance, of that Wilder will be sure.
This was far better from Wilder’s team. They lost again, and so we must beware of patronising them because that is worse than censure. But there was greater resilience defensively even if Pedro Neto got free more than once. They slowed the game down at restarts and Auston Trusty was one of the game’s best players.
More importantly, given Sheffield United’s miserable attacking numbers this season, they also broke at pace in the first half. Twice James McAtee should have done better when in the penalty area. Twice too they wasted two-on-one breaks after Wolves had over-committed players forward.
In the second half, that plan shifted to more direct football and the use of attacking set pieces. A series of long throw-ins caused problems. Sheffield United rarely won the first header, but then looked to feed off the resultant scraps while Wolves panicked and Molineux matched that same mood.
These are baby steps that come far too late, but Sheffield United had more shots on target than their opponents for the third time in their last six Premier League games. Signs of fight on the pitch, in more ways than one. Wilder will be pleased to see some backbone, if not the fists.
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