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That might just be Manchester City’s title defence over before it really started. Comprehensive defeat at Anfield, deserving of more than a two-goal margin, leaves them 11 points behind Liverpool. Arne Slot is making this taking-over-from-a-dynastical-manager thing look remarkably easy.
Arsenal and Chelsea kept up their challenge with claret-and-blue strolls, the former scoring five in the first half at West Ham.
Manchester United won their first league game under Ruben Amorim by thrashing a pathetic Everton at Old Trafford on Sunday.
Also at the bottom of the league, Ipswich Town struggled again when given lots of the ball and Leicester City just struggled to keep the ball out of their net. Wolves gave away three penalties and one of their fans tried to attack goalkeeper Jose Sa, if you’re wondering how that’s going.
Scroll down for our verdict on every team (listed in table order).
This weekend’s results
Friday 29 November
- Brighton 1-1 Southampton
Saturday 30 November
- Brentford 4-1 Leicester
- Crystal Palace 1-1 Newcastle
- Nott’m Forest 1-0 Ipswich
- Wolves 2-4 Bournemouth
- West Ham 2-5 Arsenal
Sunday 1 December
- Chelsea 3-0 Aston Villa
- Man Utd 4-0 Everton
- Tottenham 1-1 Fulham
- Liverpool 2-0 Man City
Liverpool
A third of the season gone, 11 points ahead of Manchester City, Liverpool go marching on.
“You’re getting sacked in the morning,” 60,000 Scousers sang, revelling in what might have been a rout had the score reflected Liverpool’s astonishing supremacy.
That’s another first for Pep Guardiola to embroider a run that stretches to six defeats in seven winless matches. And he thought the 4-0 loss at home to Tottenham Hotspur was the nadir. This was far more painful since to some degree it was the delivery of a result foretold.
City were not even second best when the game kicked off and ended it in fifth, just a point above Nottingham Forest.
From all angles it seems Guardiola’s fading empire is being assailed. City were dispatched by the same scoreline as Real Madrid. Kylian Mbappe one day, Erling Haaland the next. It’s all the same to Liverpool in this unquenchable mood.
A full 25 minutes elapsed before we saw a semblance of a passing sequence from City in Liverpool’s half, and 39 when Rico Lewis mustered their first shot. Before that it was all fretful anguish, thrashing about to stay their suffering.
That first period showed how Liverpool felt about themselves, never mind what they thought of City. They were full of it, cocksure, dynamic, toying with their ragged foe. Even before Cody Gakpo put them ahead, Virgil van Dijk smacked a post and sent another header narrowly wide. By Kevin Garside
Read more: Mo Salah has just sent a very clear message to Liverpool’s owners
Arsenal
Every opponent knows about Arsenal’s set-piece prowess by now but their ability to innovate and adapt means it remains a potent weapon for Mikel Arteta’s team.
Stratford was the setting for a daft London derby and the first Premier League game in 12 years to feature seven first-half goals.
There were no shortage of talking points: Bukayo Saka was brilliant (again), Declan Rice was booed and applauded by the West Ham faithful in equal measure, Julen Lopetegui is surely sleepwalking towards the sack and Emerson Palmieri scored a ludicrously good free-kick.
But the opening goal of the game from Gabriel Magalhaes was the catalyst for the ensuing chaos.
Not every team will be as vulnerable to Arsenal’s aerial bombardment as West Ham were: only Wolves and Southampton have conceded more times from such situations than the Hammers this campaign.
But Arsenal will keep finding ways to keep their opponents second guessing and in Saka they possess a superb corner taker. By Oliver Young-Myles
Read more: Arsenal’s innovative new tactic has made a potent weapon even stronger
Chelsea
If Arsenal are title contenders, so are Chelsea. That’s the reality that the league table, the greatest truth-teller of all in football, reveals.
It is not always an unimpeachable source – Match of the Day used to never show until everyone had played three games – but with 13 games played, it is a pretty accurate measure of who is where in their season.
“We are not ready to compete with Liverpool, Arsenal and [Manchester] City for many reasons, and because we win today, I’m not going to change my idea. We are not ready for that,” Enzo Maresca said after dispatching Aston Villa 3-0 at Stamford Bridge. That is the same Man City who trail the Blues by two points.
It might still come as a surprise to followers of The Narrative that Chelsea are Liverpool’s joint-nearest challengers, level on points with second-place Arsenal and, whatever Maresca says, part of the title race.
“Chelsea today showed as well [that] this year is different,” said Unai Emery, under no illusion after Chelsea’s dominant 3-0 win over his Aston Villa team, who had beaten them 1-0 here last year.
“They are feeling stronger. They don’t have doubts like last year, for example. The power and capacity as well is higher.”
There are many reasons behind that higher “capacity”, but their tactical fluidity – perhaps a byproduct of Todd Boehly’s mad talent-hoarding – is one thing that makes them a challenging prospect. Even though there were only three changes to the team, it was not clear how Chelsea would shape up, and it even took 10 minutes for Unai Emery to work it out completely. Moises Caicedo’s role as an inverted full-back, playing in midfield in attack and right-back in defence, is not a novel one in the Premier League, but just as often it would be Romeo Lavia or Levi Colwill stepping up to prevent Morgan Rogers from finding a pocket of space, not afraid to leave the defensive line one-on-one with Jaden Philogene or Ollie Watkins.
Caicedo’s dual role has knock-on effects further forward, namely the ability to include Enzo Fernandez, who had not started in the Premier League since 6 October, a run that Maresca had previous blamed on the need for balance and physicality in midfield. With both the World Cup winner and Cole Palmer on the scoresheet, it’s easy to see why Maresca has been searching for a way to get them both into the team.
“Almost all goals happen inside the box, so we need players inside the box. It’s the only way to try to score goals, and also it’s important the other ones that they are at the edge immediately cover the ball,” Maresca added. He makes it sound simple, and his players are starting to understand. By James Gray
Brighton
It is distinctly uncharitable to point out any flaws in Brighton after they temporarily went second in the Premier League, but an opportunity was spurned on Friday evening because Brighton seemed to ease off in intensity during the second half. And that is becoming an established pattern.
If you ended matches at half-time (obviously this sounds silly, but I’m making a point), then Brighton would have 25 points and would have gone top of the Premier League by that measure on Friday evening on a points-per-game basis. Create a table of second-half results and Brighton would have moved to 11th on Friday night.
That’s because Brighton tend – and, to repeat, they are generally doing brilliantly – to miss chances which they then pay for later in matches that they have not killed off when on top.
This is what makes them such a brilliant watch for the neutral. In their last five home league games, Brighton have drawn three times after holding leads – Southampton, Wolves, Nottingham Forest. They have won twice after falling behind, against Manchester City and Tottenham. Work that one out.
Man City
Pep Guardiola thought Manchester City started the first half well, a clear sign of the trouble he is in. Denial is the first stage of grief, an attempt to protect himself and his wounded players from the trauma of another thorough beating.
Even neutral observers were reeling at what they were seeing, a once imperious force overrun by the ferocity of an emerging power out for blood. The first half at Anfield was the retelling of the oldest story on earth, the end of empire, a rampant force letting the old regime have it.
Every question afterwards was answered by long, rambling answers in which he sought to convince himself that things were not as bad as they appear. “I am here sitting as a manager and defending what we have done in the past thanks to them and more than ever I want to be with them and hug them. We have to change results and in the right time we will take the decision.”
Take that as a pre-January summit to freshen the squad in the new year. City improved with the introduction of wingers Jeremy Doku and Savinho in the second half, the former in particular stretching the Liverpool defence down the left.
Whilst the teams were separated by only a single goal City gained energy as the second half wore on. Liverpool became more anxious in their defending, which almost convinced City they were in the game. Yet Liverpool were murderous on the break and the introduction of Darwin Nunez eventually took the match away from City.
Mo Salah should have put City away ten minutes into the second half. He was never going to blow out a second time. Two-nil flattered City. Guardiola must work through his grief quickly to begin the recovery. By Kevin Garside
Nott’m Forest
I don’t really know why, given their position in the table, but Saturday felt like a significant result for Nottingham Forest. Nobody here wants the momentum to dissipate from their start to the season. Losing to Newcastle and Arsenal, and the two Manchester clubs coming up away from home, left Ipswich as the obvious opportunity to make hay.
It’s a bit much to call that hay-making – 1-0, penalty, tension towards the end of the game – but Forest are still in the top seven and momentum is back. More importantly, the “1-0 to the Nottingham” vibe is back.
During their first season back in the Premier League, Forest survived relegation because of Steve Cooper’s ability to play backs-to-the-wall football and close out 1-0 leads via whatever means necessary. Forest won six games via that scoreline, all six of which came after games they failed to win. It was their cheat code to staying up.
Last season, as Forest’s points total dropped slightly and they survived only because the promoted three clubs were almost entirely awful over the second half of the season, the 1-0s dried up. Forest won 1-0 at Chelsea in Cooper’s penultimate win on 2 September 2023, and that was it.
The good times are back and so are the 1-0s. Forest have won four league games 1-0 already – Southampton, Liverpool, Crystal Palace, Ipswich. In each of them the first half has been tight and cagey, Nuno Espirito Santo’s side have scored after the break and sat deep to close it out. There’s nothing better than finding a formula that works.
Tottenham
This was the sort of game there was nothing to grab on to, a game which felt both meaningless and like it summarised everything Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham are.
Timo Werner ran around a lot. Yves Bissouma did the same. Ben Davies made last-ditch blocks and Brennan Johnson scored in far too much space. It was generally fine, a balanced aggregate of the extreme poles of Postecoglou’s men.
After the game, Postecoglou was typically belligerent in defence of his side, and his own merits, saying: “It seems with this club, whatever we do well is then used as a millstone to bring us down at every other opportunity.”
He was attempting to justify how Spurs can beat Manchester City 4-0 one week, then come desperately close to losing to Fulham the next. He pointed to Guglielmo Vicario’s ankle injury, as well as being forced to start Johnson and Werner rather than bringing them off the bench.
In principle, he’s right – this is an injury crisis by any measure. Except his comments would carry far more weight if this didn’t happen all the time, in all manner of similarly and dramatically inconvenient circumstances. He can blame injuries, understandably question some of the club’s priorities in their summer transfer business, but ultimately there are fundamental issues of mentality and of reconciling the different levels of quality throughout the squad.
He should only need to look at Marco Silva’s Fulham to know it’s possible to get more out of the players he has at his disposal, even this so-called second string. These are not new players and he’s long past being a new manager. The Postecoglou project constantly seems predicated on the idea that everything will work when all the stars align. But you have to learn how to win even with they don’t. By George Simms
Brentford
After a comfortable home win against a weak opponent (although Brentford are perfectly capable of trouble anyone at the Gtech), it’s worth us giving some love to two players who haven’t always found life easy at Brentford.
Mikkel Damsgaard has long been an effective creative influence for Denmark, but the same hasn’t really been true since he joined from Sampdoria. Damsgaard struggled for regular starts and struggled to offer goals and assists when he did start. The suspicion was that the Dane just looked a little lightweight and position-less in the Premier League.
That’s changed this season. Damsgaard has started 11 league games, trusted by Thomas Frank to be a creator from central areas. He’s repaid that faith with four assists already.
On Saturday, Kevin Schade was the primary beneficiary of Damsgaard’s work. Schade had scored two Premier League goals before Saturday, a serious injury making life harder for a young kid who arrived from Freiburg with a large price tag and rave reports from Bundesliga scouts.
Now Schade has five goals after the fourth ever Premier League hat-trick by a German player. An understandably delighted Frank poured praise on both of his players. There’s nothing that managers like more than showing patience in individuals who then pay them back double to convince fans that the head coach made the right call.
Man Utd
To give you some sense of the desperation at Old Trafford for Manchester United to claw after a new age free from miserable mediocrity, it took until the Bodo/Glimt post-match press conference for someone to ask Ruben Amorim how long he thought that this ship would take to turn around. Wait a few days and Amorim could have prepared a decent answer: it depends how often we get to face Everton.
For 30 minutes, Sunday was unpleasant and uncomfortable. On the touchline, Amorim put his hand over his chin more than once and shook his head as if to suggest “Are these guys listening to a thing I am telling them?” He would then look to the bench for emotional support, where colleagues nodded their heads: “It’s not you, mate”.
Manchester United’s midfield was open and the defence was stretched. Kobbie Mainoo, back in the team, was left doing the job of two and thus spliced into unhelpful pieces. Diogo Dalot seemed an unsuitable wing-back and Noussair Mazraoui a make-do central defender.
Everton created chances and had breaks. Play like this against Arsenal, home supporters worried, and we will be humbled.
We are still in the fact-finding stages, and thus there is much to learn beyond Everton’s incompetence. Whatever the method, if United fans could have chosen the identity of goalscorers and providers for the first two goals, Bruno Fernandes setting up Marcus Rashford and Joshua Zirkzee would surely have topped the list. One striker needs goals to start his United career; the other needs them to re-energise it.
They would both add one more each before the end, with Rashford in particular making runs as the central striker that bode well. For all the impatience, the doubt and the worry about a young man’s frame of mind, we all know that a firing Rashford would be an effective bellwether of the club’s health as a whole. Early signs are promising.
Read more: The chief beneficiary of Ruben Amorim’s Man Utd renaissance
Fulham
It should no longer be a surprise that Fulham can dominate Tottenham, as they did for large periods on Sunday. Just one point separates them in the Premier League table, even if that translates to three places. These are sides of fundamentally similar quality as it stands.
This season, they are similarly impressive in key statistics such as shots on target per game – Spurs are third, Fulham fifth – and shots conceded per game – Spurs fourth best, Fulham fifth. Both can be inconsistent but are brilliant at their best. And it’s increasingly hard to say Ange Postecoglou is a stronger manager than Marco Silva – in fact quite the opposite.
In north London, they may well have found a winner had Tom Cairney not nullified the benefit of his excellent goal with a hideous tackle on Dejan Kulusevski. They doubled Spurs’s shots on targets – six to three – and defended excellently bar Antonee Robinson’s complete dereliction of duty to allow Johnson’s goal.
Even with all of the current top four to come in the next five matches, Fulham consistently look like a top eight Premier League side, and the numbers back that up. With no cup distractions to come until January, there’s no reason why they can’t take advantage of nosediving form elsewhere to continue their ascent. By George Simms
Newcastle
A change in midfield did little to change Newcastle’s fortunes following on from the defeat at West Ham.
Captain Bruno Guimaraes was playing No 8 for the first time in the league this season, a shift up from No 6 with Sandro Tonali dropping back against Crystal Palace.
The pair were starting together for the first time in five matches, and it was very much the case of an experiment still in its infancy when, given it was late November, Newcastle fans would rather have hoped the time for such trials were over.
Eddie Howe bullishly praised both – “I thought they both played well. I thought Sandro was excellent, he put out a lot of fires for us, and I was pleased with the physical effort he gave” – but in reality this structural change spoke of their wider issue which is a lack of creative spark.
Guimaraes struggled in that regard, while Crystal Palace’s industrious pair of Will Hughes and Jefferson Lerma taught Newcastle’s midfielders a thing or two – with Lerma in particular sticking to Guimaraes like glue and breaking up numerous attacks.
That leaves Howe plenty to ponder before they host Liverpool on Wednesday, although he can’t quite pinpoint where his side are going wrong, having been the fourth-highest scorers in the league last season (85) but now lingering in the bottom half in that regard this term.
“It’s a strange performance from us,” Howe said. “Nothing in the final third. A lot of set-plays, opportunities to get a head on something, but we look a little low on confidence. We were without a recognised striker [after losing Alexander Isak], we were just lacking a cutting edge.”
Asked about why scoring has become an issue, he added: “It’s a difficult one to answer but we haven’t changed our attacking philosophy. It’s difficult to give a clear and direct answer, but one we’re aware of. I’ve got no issue with the quality of players we have.” By Michael Hincks
Aston Villa
The existence of an Aston Villa fan is a strangely twisted one this season, doing whatever the opposite of living for the weekend is.
Because in the Champions League, Villa are living in dreamland, Juventus one week, Bayern Munich the next. But then come Saturday, or more often Sunday, they are back to Premier League duty and the form that earned them these European nights has all but deserted them.
Their problems are not even restricted to one area of the pitch, with both scoring and preventing goals a real Premier League problem. Up front, Ollie Watkins is their top scorer, but he really should have so many more than just six. Against Chelsea, he had two chances that each should have forced Robert Sanchez into more than a comfortably held save. Watkins dithered on one and snatched at the other.
“When you miss chances, you do start to doubt yourself,” said Daniel Sturridge on Sky Sports’ coverage, stating the obvious.
But Watkins will be more than aware of his numbers: only Mo Salah and Erling Haaland have a higher xG (expected goals) in the Premier League this season, and Nicolas Jackson, who scored his eighth league goal on Sunday, has had 15 fewer touches in the box than Watkins, for two more goals.
At the other end, Emi Martinez was lucky to only concede two in the 45 minutes he spent on the pitch. This season, Villa have the fourth-worst post-shot expected goals minus goals allowed in the Premier League, a metric that measures how effective a goalkeeper is. Shot-stopping aside, Martinez inexplicably picked up a clear backpass from Pau Torres and passed the ball across goal straight to Jackson, who was so surprised by its arrival that he failed to convert. Little wonder Villa have just one clean sheet in 18 Premier League games.
Martinez’s injury and Robin Olsen’s enforced deputisation may be a blessing in disguise if Villa want to get back into the Champions League. All is not lost yet, they are only four points adrift. By James Gray
Bournemouth
A genuinely landmark Premier League moment with Justin Kluivert scoring a hat-trick of penalties for the first time in the competition’s history and Evanilson winning three penalties for the first time too.
The former is one of those nuggets that you feel should have happened more often. Five different players have taken three penalties in a Premier League game, but Kluivert was the first to actually score all three. The others who missed at least one: Craig Burley, Darren Bent, Steven Gerrard and Sergio Aguero. You may remember Gerrard missing his third against Manchester United.
In fact, Kluivert’s record goes back a lot further. He was the first player to score a hatt-rick of penalties in England’s top flight since Ken Barnes for Manchester City against Everton in December 1957.
West Ham
A telltale sign when things aren’t working out for a manager is when their team starts conceding goals in clusters.
During his short time at West Ham, Julen Lopetegui has seen his side let in two goals during a 20-minute spell against Manchester City; two in 14 minutes against Chelsea, which became three in 45; four in 25 minutes against Spurs; two in 13 minutes against Nottingham Forest after already trailing by one; and now five in 40 minutes against Arsenal.
West Ham are both brittle and far too easy to score against. Five of their six league losses under the Spaniard have been by a margin of two or more goals.
Heads dropped far too quickly after Gabriel had used his to net Arsenal’s first. Quickfire strikes from their two full-backs gave West Ham some brief hope of an extraordinary comeback, but within 10 minutes that had also been extinguished after the concession of a self-inflicted fifth.
The first 35 minutes was as bad as it gets, the type of performance that encourages irate fans to call up radio phone-ins and have a rant. There was an improvement from that point onwards but at 4-0 down it hardly mattered.
An ugly scuffle on the concourse towards the end of the first-half, seemingly between West Ham fans and Arsenal supporters who had been sat in the home end, summed up a miserable day.
A West Ham spokesperson said: “The club is aware of the incident and will be working to identify the offender[s]. In line with our zero-tolerance approach, anyone identified will have their details passed to the police and will be given an indefinite ban and therefore be unable to enter London Stadium and travel with the club. There is no place for this kind of behaviour at our stadium.” By Oliver Young-Myles
Everton
For those still after definitive evidence of why many Everton supporters do not want Sean Dyche to stay in this job for long once the Friedkin takeover is completed, watch back Manchester United’s third goal at Old Trafford on Sunday.
It came shortly after half-time, during which Dyche presumably gave instructions to his team after a first period that started well but was pockmarked by individual defensive errors and disorganisation. We would see what difference those words made.
The goal started with Jordan Pickford knocking the ball long, as is the general rule from Everton. No player even challenges for the resulting header, United comfortably winning possession without pressure. In midfield, there is then a challenge which Idrissa Gueye arrives slightly late to and then seems to pull out of, allowing Bruno Fernandes to knock the ball over his head.
Further up the pitch, United are able to play two quick passes without anyone bothering to spot the counter attack. Amad Diallo is then set free on the right because nobody has tracked him. To complete the set, Marcus Rashford then makes a run in behind that no centre-back tracks. He scores.
Over those eight seconds, it is as if Everton’s players are operating on a two-second delay, unable to either plan for what is coming next nor react quickly enough to what has just happened. Defensive organisation is supposed to be Dyche’s staple. He’s not even managing that at the moment.
Read more: Sean Dyche is running out of excuses for Everton’s terrible football
Leicester
The good news is that Ruud van Nistelrooy isn’t going to underestimate the size of his challenge. Those Leicester City supporters who believed that Steve Cooper set up his team far too defensively may just have realised Cooper’s logic. Against Brentford, they were collectively and individually open in and out of possession. It was far, far too easy.
But I wanted to talk about social media abuse. James Justin is a 26-year-old defender who has been through a fair bit, including serious injury. Justin also has a senior England cap, evidence of his proven ability. Right now, he’s seemingly suffering from reduced confidence and reduced form. The two tend to exacerbate each other.
Now go and look at the social media posts from Leicester City’s official accounts after each Brentford goal on Saturday. Without fail, the replies are abusing Justin. He should never play again, apparently. Or go to hell. Or be punished by the club. Or be made to apologise to supporters personally.
Social media may not be reflective of humanity as a whole (it’s closer than you’d like to think, mind), but that’s not really the point. If you’re a supporter of Leicester City, in the truest sense, you are a supporter of each player who is giving their all. How do you think it makes him feel? Justin has close friends in that dressing room – what will they make of it?
If the end goal here is for your club to get the best performances it can, maybe grow up a bit and stop targeting individual players with abuse just to make yourself feel a tiny bit better by relieving some anger.
Crystal Palace
It was mesmerising to watch. If luck has any place in football then certainly there wasn’t any on Crystal Palace’s side.
Not only did Newcastle lead without recording a shot on target, but Crystal Palace’s repeated attempts to ripple the net themselves left you wondering if they’d ever score another this season.
Fifteen shots came and went, only four hitting the target, with Daniel Munoz guilty of being the wrong man in the right place in the first half, firing wide with the goal at his mercy.
Remarkably, though, the right-back then made amends with his first Palace goal in the 94th minute to earn them a point their endeavour deserved.
The late equaliser sent Oliver Glasner sprinting down the touchline in celebration, earning him a booking he went on to rate as his second favourite of his career, and like his first favourite at Eintracht Frankfurt – when he kicked the ball into the stands in frustration, and says it was a moment that helped his side go on to win the Europa League in 2022 – he hopes this could be a momentum changer at Palace too.
Glasner was also acutely aware that it could, should, have been better, with their current performances defying their position in the relegation zone.
“We deserved more today,” Glasner said. “When you score an equaliser you have to be happy, but the feeling is not that it’s a lucky point, more that we lost two points.”
Failure to convert these displays into three points may yet come back to haunt Palace, but they are at least buying Glasner time, and you cannot fault his players in that regard. They are playing for their manager, they are creating chances, and may just have had the moment this season needed.
“If we will continue playing like this, we will get the points,” Glasner added, defiantly, and with Ipswich away on Tuesday, that will be the ideal place to show they are really a cut above their relegation rivals. By Michael Hincks
Wolves
It might not be known to those outside of Wolverhampton, but Molineux can be a toxic ground if things aren’t going well. I remember being there for England’s home defeat to Hungary in the Nations League. It was the most bitter and angry I can ever remember a home crowd, with supporters trying to climb over the hoardings to get to Gareth Southgate and screaming for him to lose his job.
Gary O’Neil might not have quite got to that stage yet, but on Saturday the toxicity was certainly there. Goalkeeper Jose Sa was involved in an altercation with a home supporter on the half-time whistle, with the fan subsequently removed by security. If O’Neil bought himself some time with victory at Fulham last week, he lost it all here. We’ve said it before, but winning just enough games to hoodwink yourselves into thinking that you aren’t in serious trouble is a recipe for relegation.
You can understand why Wolves supporters may be allowing anger to bubble over. Their team has played 16 home league games in 2024 so far. They have won four of those matches (Southampton, Sheffield United, Luton, Fulham) and lost 11. They have conceded two or more goals in 11 of those 16 matches, a truly pathetic home defensive record. On the evidence of Sunday, it’s only getting worse.
Ipswich
I think Kieran McKenna might have a possession problem, with Saturday’s defeat to Nottingham Forest providing strong evidence. Ipswich had 55 per cent of the ball at the City Ground, registered 0.6 xG and failed to score. More worrying still: less than half of that xG came when 1-0 down, when Forest allowed them even more of the ball.
Since their opening two league games (which were against Liverpool and Manchester City), Ipswich have taken five points from the four matches in which they have had 40 per cent of the ball or less. They have taken four points from the seven matches in which they have had more than 40 per cent possession.
The list of opponents doesn’t make for any better reading. The five games in which Ipswich have recorded their highest possession: Nottingham Forest, Fulham, Everton, West Ham, Southampton. Everton have taken two points from those fixtures and three of those opponents have struggled badly in the first third of this season.
Without the ball, Ipswich can certainly trouble opponents – see draws against Aston Villa and Manchester United and the win over Tottenham for details. But the valid question is whether that is a sustainable means of earning enough points to survive when they have dropped so many points against supposed strugglers: Southampton, Leicester, West Ham, Everton.
Southampton
Flynn Downes may have scored the goal that earned Southampton a point at Brighton, but it was Tyler Dibling who, again, pulled the game in their favour. At 18, Dibling has become the leader of Southampton’s attacking endeavour and may be their best hope of staying up.
The numbers are getting a bit ridiculous. Dibling has played 750 of a possible 1,170 league minutes. He has recorded 3.96 shot-creating actions per 90 minutes, which is 1.2 per 90 minutes ahead of any other regular Southampton starter. He comfortably leads those same teammates for carries into the final third and the penalty area, pretty much the only one capable of creating from out wide consistently.
That carrying ability is the thing that stands out as soon as you watch Dibling, very much like Jack Grealish during his formative years at Aston Villa. He demands the ball, whether it’s 60 yards or 30 yards from the opposition goal. He slows the game down and quickens it up according to his preference.
And Dibling loves taking on an opponent with that fearlessness of youth.
Despite playing fewer minutes than most of those around him, on Friday night Dibling went fourth in the Premier League for the number of times a player has attempted to dribble past a player.
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