A weekend of surprises at the top of the Premier League, the only exception being Manchester City continuing to stink the place out. They lost the derby despite having all the control and a lead at 88 minutes, which is a new one.
Arsenal and Liverpool both missed the chance to make the most of each other slipping up, allowing Chelsea and Enzo Maresca to take another step closer to a title challenge. The other member of the top four are Nottingham Forest, who scored twice after the 87th minute to beat Aston Villa and send the City Ground wild.
Gary O’Neil finally ran out of ground at Molineux following a toxic home defeat to Ipswich, and Russell Martin may well follow this week after Southampton conceded five times in the first half against Tottenham. Still, none of them came from passing out from the back.
Scroll down for our verdict on every team (listed in table order).
This weekend’s results
Saturday 14 December
- Arsenal 0-0 Everton
- Liverpool 2-2 Fulham
- Newcastle 4-0 Leicester
- Wolves 1-2 Ipswich
- Nott’m Forest 2-1 Aston Villa
Sunday 15 December
Monday 16 December
- Bournemouth vs West Ham (8pm)
Liverpool
There are many reasons why Liverpool are top of the Premier League but the chief one is that no club has taken more points from losing positions.
The point they grabbed against Fulham may be the unlikeliest of them all. Liverpool were a goal down; they were a man down – both incidents involving the luckless Andy Robertson.
Fulham were playing smartly, quickly and inventively. There were suddenly vast spaces for Marco Silva’s side to exploit, particularly in the vacant full-back positions.
Then, minutes into the second half, came a beautifully-paced cross from Mohamed Salah met by Cody Gakpo’s diving header. Anfield exploded. Then everything halted for a VAR check. The red and yellow sign that proclaimed “Goal!” froze on the electronic scoreboard.
The crowd expect it, the players expect it and even, subliminally, do their opponents. You saw it most vividly in Manchester when United and City were in their pomp under Ferguson and Guardiola and you see it here now.
Then Anfield exploded again. Liverpool may still have had more than 40 minutes to play with a man down but the stadium believed.
And even when Fulham regained the lead when Rodrigo Muniz bundled the ball over the line the belief never quite died. Once comebacks become ingrained into the skin of a club they are expected. By Tim Rich
Read more: The verdict on all three controversies in Liverpool’s draw with Fulham
League table
Chelsea
“There are no pictures on the scorecard,” a wise golfer often says, usually to reassure a partner that their score, no matter the grit or fortune of its making, will simply appear as a number in the final reckoning.
You might say the same of Chelsea’s 2-1 victory over Brentford, which in the most superficial of terms was a victory that moved them to within two points of the Premier League’s summit. But dig any deeper, and there are signs that their title challenge will need some refining as the season starts to turn for home.
Marc Cucurella’s day was a classic hero-to-zero performance, scoring Chelsea’s opener just two minutes before the break when it looked as though Brentford might frustrate the Blues for a whole half, and then earning a suspension by receiving two stoppage-time yellow cards, the second after full-time.
He would have been a contender for Player of the Match up until those final hair-brained minutes, when he was booked for rashly flying into a challenge on Fabio Carvalho, then infuriated Brentford by manufacturing a free-kick – collapsing holding his face – and finally got into a post-final whistle shoving match with Kevin Schade to earn his second caution.
Like it or not, Chelsea are in the title race – “They are second, yes?”, as Frank pointed out – virtue of trailing league leaders Liverpool by just two points, albeit the Reds have a game in hand. But if they are to persist in running Arne Slot’s side close, they are going to have to wisen up – and fast.
Chelsea, who were missing seven first-teamers through injury or suspension, lacked nouse. For a team with plenty of experience, they did not have the canniness to navigate that awkward second half, despite Nicolas Jackson’s breakaway goal eventually doubling their advantage.
Ironically, they needed more players like the now-suspended Cucurella. Had he not been the only one gulling the referee and wasting time by winding up Brentford players, he might not have got booked twice and they might have successfully run down more of the clock.
Their next Premier League appointment is at Sean Dyche’s Everton, who will provide a similarly resolute opposition to Brentford’s first-half efforts. Chelsea will need to show they are starting to learn the lesson. By James Gray
Arsenal
Everton have shown the rest of the Premier League how it’s done: prevent Arsenal from scoring from set-pieces and you’ll stop them completely.
The Gunners’ spell as dead ball monsters always felt a bit incongruous, an affront to the intricate, free-flowing style that their teams, through various ups and downs, have been synonymous with over the past 30 years – a violent lurch into pure unadulterated anti Wenger-ball.
It has been a wild ride. In recent weeks, Arsenal supporters have celebrated the awarding of corners as though they were last-minute winners, jubilantly chanted “set piece again, ole ole,” after each goal scored via that method and even painted up a mural of set play specialist Nicolas Jover in the vicinity of their home ground. By Oliver Young-Myles
Nottingham Forest
What else can you say about this magnificent season? If the comprehensive defeats at Manchester City and Arsenal reiterated how much Forest have overachieved in their other games, the last two games have taken them to unprecedented highs. Most supporters knew that December would be tough, given the fixture list. So far it’s six points out of nine.
There have been some magnificent moments at the City Ground since promotion – think the climax of victories over Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United and the equaliser against Manchester City – but Saturday might just have beaten them all. From the adversity of the Martinez wonder save, the Jhon Duran goal and the marginal VAR offside, Forest displayed a remarkable team spirit that dragged them on.
There were individual stars. Elliot Anderson was probably Forest’s best player for his energy in winning back the ball and sparking attacks, but Nikola Milenkovic now has goals in consecutive league games, Morgan Gibbs-White continues to produce the clutch moments and Neco Williams combined effectively with Callum Hudson-Odoi on the left.
But this was about more than individuals, instead a collective representation of a team in rude health and developing an unshakeable belief. Only once since March 2022 – when they were in the Championship – have Forest won a home match after trailing. That was the 3-1 victory against Brighton in April 2023 that seemed to turn the tide in their bid to survive relegation. That game actually felt very similar to this one, with Gibbs-White’s penalty late on sealing the win and causing wild scenes of joy.
For any Forest supporter who needs another reason to feel happy, which seems unlikely, this was also the first time that they have won any match in second-half stoppage time since a 1-0 win at Millwall in January 2022. Quite a lot has happened in the interim.
Man City
It was always going to happen. What we couldn’t foresee was just how spectacular the comedown would be.
What has been most remarkable about what Pep Guardiola and Manchester City have done as they have taken a stranglehold of the Premier League is that they keep coming back, year after year, with a hunger and desire undiminished, even when the trophy room is full to bursting.
What do you get someone who has everything for Christmas? The Premier League’s pursuit of 115 charges breathed new life into a City team with every box ticked. So much so, Guardiola went against his own mantra of keeping things fresh by going into this season with pretty much the same players as last.
In terms of average age, City’s starting XI against Manchester United was the oldest named by either side in a Manchester derby in the Premier League since April 2017. And it showed.
Pep’s Dad’s Army have lost their mojo. So has their manager. It has to be expected given what has come before, but the most worrying element to their dramatic decline is the timing.
Guardiola’s signing of a new contract was meant to galvanise his struggling side, just as the Premier League’s attempts to deny them their former glories did.
Instead, in the cold light of day, one of the game’s greatest managers has prolonged his stay at a club he readily admits to be as clueless as we are as to why they find themselves in the slump they are in. By Pete Hall
Aston Villa
Who would be a goalkeeper? At the City Ground on Saturday evening, Emi Martinez produced one of the greatest saves in Premier League history. The slow-motion replay did him a disservice because it created a false impression of the reaction and thinking time that Martinez had to stick out a strong hand, push the ball down and scoop it away from the line.
But without that replay, it was also hard to appreciate the quality of the save because it all happened so quickly. Your brain and eyes cannot process the speed of the thought and movement. That’s a reasonable indicator that the action is pretty impressive.
And yet we cannot escape the ultimate conclusion: Martinez’s mistake for Forest’s equaliser changed the game. The header from Nikola Milenkovic had decent power, no doubt, but it was far nearer Martinez than it first seemed.
Aston Villa’s goalkeeper seemed to get caught between two decisions. He wanted to catch the ball because the area in front of him was crowded, but realised too late that he was diving backwards and so needed to punch the ball clear. Stuck between those two options, he ended up just shovelling it sideways and into his own goal.
That sums up Martinez as a goalkeeper. He does indeed make miraculous saves, usually in big moments – that is why he was named the world’s best goalkeeper. But he’s also not the world’s best goalkeeper – in the opinion of this layperson anyway – because the mistakes also come.
Bournemouth
Play West Ham on Monday night.
Fulham
For the third successive time at Anfield, including a Carabao Cup semi-final, Fulham were denied victory by late Liverpool goals. They did at least come away with a point.
Perhaps they ought to have capitalised more immediately after Andy Robertson’s dismissal. The empty space beckoned as they responded to Liverpool’s attacks with counters of their own. Passes went astray, balls did not quite go to feet.
Their manager, Marco Silva, thought they should have kept possession better and made better decisions.
Although they sparkled going forward, Fulham’s outstanding performers were in defence. Issa Diop and Jorge Cuenca would not have been Silva’s first choice centre-halves in the cauldron that Anfield became. Facing the most lethal attack in the country, they did more than simply endure.
At left back, Antonee Robinson found himself facing Salah on his home turf. The Fulham captain admitted there were moments in the first half when he found that equation difficult. However, he was involved in both Fulham goals and performed beautifully.
“He has to be decisive,” said his manager. “Playing against Salah, he had to be brave.”
Of all the remarks made by Manchester United’s co-owner, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, none seemed so tone-deaf as his observation that it was ridiculous that fans should pay more to watch games at Craven Cottage than Old Trafford.
Given Fulham’s style and the fact nobody quite knows what will be served up on a visit to United, it seems eminently logical. By Tim Rich
Brighton
Are Brighton hitting their customary mid-season blip earlier than normal? Perhaps. Some of the shine has certainly come off Fabian Hurzeler’s football and his team have taken two points from their last four games. When they won away at Bournemouth, outsiders were talking up a possible top-four bid. Now Brighton are struggling to keep hold of their top-half place.
There is an established pattern, of course. Brighton have played all of the teams who were in the bottom five at the start of this weekend. They have won none of those matches and taken four points from a possible 15.
And there’s a reason for that pattern: possession. Oliver Glasner had a plan to beat Brighton, namely soaking up pressure and then, gradually, persuading Brighton to overcommit in search of a goal and thus leaving themselves exposed to the counter.
In the six league games in which Brighton have had the least possession, ranging from 40-48 per cent, they have taken 16 points from a possible 18. The only exception was last weekend’s 2-2 draw with Leicester when they threw away a two-goal lead at the end.
In their 10 league games during which Brighton have had more than half of the possession, they have taken eight points from a possible 30. The three with the most possession: draw against Nottingham Forest at home, draw against Ipswich at home, loss against Crystal Palace at home.
Tottenham
As a Tottenham supporter worked out on Twitter, it only took Djed Spence 884 days from signing for Spurs to making his first competitive start. This was a mix of the manager who signed him moving on, failing to settle in, being loaned out, getting the odd injury, having a very good player in the same position as him and question marks about the attitude. All in: not a great two years.
Maybe it might have been worth giving him a go earlier? Perhaps there is only so much you can learn from beating Russell Martin’s Southampton, but Spence got his first assist after 36 seconds, stepping into central midfield to receive the ball, driving forward and playing a gorgeous ball to James Maddison.
It wasn’t just that. When Destiny Udogie picked up an injury and Pedro Porro came off the bench, Spence switched over to the left wing and looked just as effective.
With Son Heung-min generally staying wide, Spence was able to make underlapping runs that stretched Southampton but also drift infield with the ball and combine with Maddison. As the pair walked off at half-time, Maddison was quick to congratulate Spence for his work.
Nothing is fixed with Tottenham, because Southampton are routinely so absolutely terrible and because Spurs probably will be next week. But Ange Postecoglou should at least be comforted that he has a full-back option who has been entirely ignored since his signing in 2022. Maybe ride it out and keep Spence in the team?
Brentford
With such a poor away record this season – Brentford have still only managed one point on the road – you can understand why Thomas Frank set his team up so deep against Chelsea.
And it was even more understandable when the most exposed they looked in the opening half hour was when they ventured forward and the likes of Noni Madueke and Jadon Sancho could open their legs up on the counter.
However, some of the blame for that openness must fall at the feet of Keith Andrews, the former Republic of Ireland midfielder who is Brentford’s set-piece coach; on more than one occasion in the first half, the Bees were caught three-on-two or three-on-one, purely because they had committed bodies forward to an unsuccessful corner or long throw. They were lucky it took Chelsea 43 minutes to take the lead.
The main focus of any set piece coach is shots on target and goals, and Brentford managed none of those. But covering the counter must be a concern too, and they seem not bothered about doing so.
If Brentford are going to cede so much possession and position away from home, the rare opportunity to attack at set pieces must be seized far better. By James Gray
Newcastle
Is it really just four months since Lewis Hall became a regular at Newcastle United?
In a season of strife at St James’ Park, the emergence of Hall as a player of international calibre has been a joy to behold. His consistent quality is not only helping Newcastle to win important matches, it’s also a reminder of why Eddie Howe still remains so firmly in credit.
Last season Hall cut a lonely figure as he was held back even in the thick of an injury crisis, seemingly unable to meet the demands of Howe’s system.
But with Dan Burn switched back to centre-back after Newcastle failed to land Marc Guehi in the summer, opportunity knocked for Hall and he has taken it. By Mark Douglas
Read more: The Premier League’s best left-back is now at Newcastle thanks to Eddie Howe
Man Utd
Whatever has happened, Ruben Amorim felt compelled to make a statement by leaving Alejandro Garnacho and Marcus Rashford out of the squad for a Manchester derby clash.
He had his reasons, but it looked to have cost his side their best chance of a result at the Etihad, as Manchester United longed for some element of threat as they trailed in the second half.
Then along came Amad Diallo, showing Garnacho and Rashford what it takes to be a success in this high intensity, high press Amorim team.
If Garnacho and Rashford were left to follow the game on Twitch in the plush Cheshire mansions as a result of behaviour not befitting a professional footballer, then Diallo and the manner of his two goals gives Amorim the ultimate justification for such a bold, bold call.
As a spectacle, the 195th Manchester derby will not live long in the memory, with the team announcement the most exhilarating moment until Diallo’s intervention left the Etihad aghast.
While United were the better team for large swatches of the encounter, they lacked a cutting edge, with Diallo’s sashaying runs their only outlet. By Pete Hall
West Ham
Play Bournemouth on Monday night.
Crystal Palace
This has been coming for some time, I promise. A look at the Premier League table before this weekend saw Palace in huge trouble, but the worm had turned long before their biggest win in the derby for 12 years. Oliver Glasner’s side had lost one of their previous seven in the league, including wins over Tottenham and away at Ipswich. It was only their rotten start to the season keeping them out of mid-table.
Here, at last, was the perfect Glasner performance. They were forced to soak up pressure in the first 25 minutes as Brighton started quickly, but Marc Guehi led the defence and Dean Henderson was immaculate. They had the legs in midfield; Jefferson Lerma and Will Hughes are industrious, even if they lack some passing invention. They broke extremely quickly when given the opportunity and fashioned chances at will.
That worked because the shape now works. Rather than trying to squeeze Eddie Nketiah into the team behind the striker or dropping Jean-Philippe Mateta to accommodate the new signing, Glasner is playing Eberechi Eze and Ismaila Sarr as the two behind the striker and giving them the licence to drift and create.
This works so well because the wing-backs are back in form. Daniel Munoz repeatedly looks to get forward – he was unfortunate to have a goal ruled out for a touch-and-go foul that was never going to be overturned by VAR. Tyrick Mitchell is not a natural attacking threat, but his delivery for Sarr’s header was exquisite. Things are looking up.
Everton
Everton have been a tough watch for most of this season and Sean Dyche has been criticised for setting his team up to spoil rather than entertain. The attacking numbers make for grim reading: The Toffees have failed to score in eight of their 15 Premier League games this season, including five of their last six with the outlier being a 4-0 thrashing of a dysfunctional Wolves. Only 20th-placed Southampton have scored fewer than their 11 goals across the campaign.
However, uninspiring as they tend to be going forward, there is little wrong with their defensive efforts. Since shipping 13 goals in their opening four league matches, Everton have conceded the fewest goals in the division in their subsequent 11 fixtures with just eight in total. Only the league leaders Liverpool have kept more clean sheets since the opening weekend with seven to Everton’s six.
They had to overcome one or two moments of peril at the Emirates, especially a Martin Odegaard chance in the first half, but for the most part, stfiled Arsenal effectively. An industrious midfield three of Idrissa Gueye, Orel Mangala and Abdoulaye Doucoure did an excellent job of protecting their back four, locking down the centre and forcing Arsenal to funnel the ball wide and load crosses into the box which Jordan Pickford and his centre-backs dealt with pretty comfortably.
It wasn’t pretty – Everton had just two shots all game – but Dyche’s game plan worked. Arsenal have made the Emirates a fortress and denying them a victory there takes some doing. This is Everton’s blueprint for tricky away days. Now it’s on Dyche to find a way of marrying that resolve with greater invention and ambition against equal or lesser opponents. By Oliver Young-Myles
Leicester
After the honeymoon, the hangover for Ruud Van Nistelrooy – who now realises what a sizeable task he faces at Leicester.
Having overseen two encouraging results there was a return to the mean at St James’ Park: fragility at the back, not enough threat going forward and a tendency towards collapse when the going gets tough. Injuries provide some mitigation for Leicester being dominated in midfield by the imperious Sandro Tonali but there is little excuse for getting rolled over like they did.
You suspect that those areas might be addressed in a potentially pivotal January transfer window – PSR issues notwithstanding – but before then Leicester have a curious run of fixtures that starts with a huge Midlands derby at home to Wolves before a trip to Anfield and then a home game with Manchester City. Getting something out of that is no longer such a long shot.
But having been happy to just tweak and rely on vibes to make an immediate impact, Van Nistelrooy must now get to work. Chief among the issues to address is how alarmingly easy they are to play through, with midfield protection missing in action.
This is undoubtedly the biggest challenge facing his fledgling managerial career. By Mark Douglas
Ipswich
Unlike Wolves, Ipswich Town are where they expected to be – sure, not where they would want to be – and this acceptance of reality has given them their best shot at survival.
They have a clear target, a collective goal, and all that makes for an admirable drive that is all the more obvious when your opponents are lacking any sense of direction whatsoever.
Wolves could yet stay up. Ipswich might go down. The reality is that both are on course for relegation, but only one of these sides resemble a team up for preventing that from happening.
There are issues to fix – because this side are 18th, not eighth after all – such as the stability Arijanet Muric provides in goal, but it says something when two teams and two managers are separated by just one position, and only one of them is under scrutiny.
Kieran McKenna is not that man, and he knows these are “moments to cherish” after late goals have largely gone against them.
This latest win came in front of his pal, too, one Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. An out-of-work manager watching on at Molineux, you say? It was ripe for some tail-wagging among Wolves fans, but in reality this was merely a case of man visits friends. They tried putting out fires together at Manchester United, here was the Norwegian witnessing McKenna doing it at the other end of the table. By Michael Hincks
Wolves
Wolves are not sleepwalking towards relegation, but rather they have been hurtling towards it head-first for some time. They are the worst performing Premier League side in 2024, discounting the six either relegated or promoted sides.
Their 40 goals conceded this season comes after they failed to replace Max Kilman and sacking Gary O’Neil after the defeat to Ipswich could come too late.
And while O’Neil’s own decisions can be questioned – namely his desire to stick with Jean-Ricner Bellegarde – it is above him where the most questionable of decisions have been made.
Sure, sticking with O’Neil for so long is one, but it has been Fosun Group’s project that has led Wolves to this moment. The buy-low, sell-high acceptance that they will not break through into the big leagues, that despite reaching Europe in 2019-20.
Wolves’ players are therefore in it for themselves because that’s the ethos that has been fed through to them. Play well, get sold, join a bigger club. Pedro Neto, Matheus Nunes, Ruben Neves, Morgan Gibbs-White, Diogo Jota. All have moved on to pastures new, and in the main, to where the grass has been greener.
The project is proving their downfall, and it cannot be a surprise to Fosun Group, to chairman Jeff Shi, and to sporting director Matt Hobbs, that the current crop hardly care where Wolves end up.
It is difficult to play for the badge when the owners have this short-term, quick turnaround mentality, and so instead of playing for the club, the players are in it for the prospect of being the next £50m move away.
That wasn’t a problem when Wolves finished 13th, or 10th, or 13th once more or 14th, but it has been taking them in one direction. The fear now will be that relegation beckons, and once Matheus Cunha moves on, this transfer cycle that has so far kept them up will utterly go off the rails.
It is a scary prospect, and almost makes the decision to sack O’Neil feel immaterial. By Michael Hincks
Southampton
It wasn’t that Southampton repeatedly made the same mistake to concede – none of Tottenham’s five first-half goals were scored directly from the Saints passing out from the back and getting caught. But if you think that’s a positive spin, you didn’t watch those first 45 minutes in all its gory details.
Shortly before half-time, Russell Martin seemed to miss the fifth Tottenham goal because he was looking at his iPad. If there was anything to epitomise this Southampton half-season, and Martin’s dismissal, it is that. This has been a calamitous period during which Martin has insisted that his way can work. It has been an abject failure.
Maybe these players just aren’t up to scratch, as Martin has intimated as a means of self-preservation over the last couple of months. But there are ways of making your side difficult to beat and when you wholly ignore those in favour of your own dogma, you cannot cry foul if that dogma is badly exposed. Southampton’s players are no worse than Leicester’s or Ipswich’s. Their spirit has simply been broken by the manner of their defeats.
That is on the manager. I don’t know whether Vincent Kompany getting the Bayern Munich job has persuaded managers of similar clubs that they would be better off sticking to the tactical philosophy in hope of promotion even if it doesn’t work, but that can be the only explanation for the lack of wiggle room in Martin’s approach this season.
It clearly didn’t work. Sorry, Russell, but you aren’t getting the Borussia Dortmund gig this summer.
This is also on Southampton, though. We could all see this coming. This club is only in this position in the first place because it failed to back Ralph Hasenhuttl with transfers when he was in charge, splurged badly on expensive gambles after Hasenhuttl had left and lurched badly between Ruben Selles and Nathan Jones to get relegated. If they didn’t spot that this might be the natural result of this season with Martin, they didn’t watch Burnley enough last season. Now the only question is who even wants to take this job.
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