I think we might well look back at the end of May and consider this the weekend on which Liverpool put one firm hand on the Premier League title. They had the firepower on the bench – Darwin Nunez scoring twice in stoppage time – while Arsenal let a two-goal slip and missed chances to kill off the game.
Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth were the two big winners, Forest because they hung on to a lead and Newcastle, Aston Villa and Arsenal all failed to win and Bournemouth because they produced perhaps the most impressive performance of this season to date despite a long injury list.
At the bottom, Leicester City entered their toxic mutiny stage after a seventh straight league defeat under Ruud van Nistelrooy. Leicester are now six points behind Everton in 16th and have a daunting run of league fixtures ahead. Still, could be worse: you could be Tottenham.
This weekend’s results
Saturday 18 January
- Newcastle 1-4 Bournemouth
- Brentford 0-2 Liverpool
- Leicester 0-2 Fulham
- West Ham 0-2 Crystal Palace
- Arsenal 2-2 Aston Villa
Sunday 19 January
- Everton 3-2 Tottenham
- Man Utd 1-3 Brighton
- Nottingham Forest 3-2 Southampton
- Ipswich 0-6 Man City
Liverpool
Two minutes that might change the course of Darwin Nunez’s fraught Liverpool career. A moment of personal triumph for arguably the most beleaguered forward in English football. Collectively, it will banish the jitters that were starting to build after dropped points against Manchester United and Nottingham Forest.
Arne Slot was adamant the focus should be on his side’s expected goals (xG) – 3.4 to Brentford’s 0.72. He believes “nothing has changed” except that teams are now setting up deliberately to thwart Liverpool.
The picture has mostly looked so rosy since his arrival that it can be easy to forget just how many loose threads he was left to tie up after a low-key summer window.
As the clock ticks down on the contracts of Trent Alexander-Arnold, Mo Salah and Virgil van Dijk, there was always a danger that uncertainty would start to cloud the latter part of Liverpool’s title challenge. They cannot afford to fall into the trap of thinking those are the only wrinkles that need ironing out in the wrestle between Jurgen Klopp’s legacy and a bright future.
It is credit to Kostas Tsimikas that his recent performances seemed to suggest that finding a more permanent successor to Andy Robertson was not urgent.
In the draw with Forest, it was telling that as soon as Robertson was replaced by his deputy – having struggled to create any real attacking threat and looked blunt from set pieces – Tsimikas provided the equaliser for Diogo Jota.
At Brentford, Bryan Mbeumo caused serious problems for Tsimikas defensively, not helped by the Greek picking up an eighth-minute booking. After one particularly ill-judged back-pass to Alisson, he earned a furious rebuke as the goalkeeper booted the ball out of play under pressure.
All of Brentford’s best work came down that side and should have earned them an early goal, Mbeumo waltzing past the left-back to set up Mads Roerslev’s peach of a cross. Mikkel Damsgaard just couldn’t connect from yards out.
Tsimikas was only ever signed in 2020 as a back-up but with Robertson flagging – yet to register an assist all season in the Premier League – he has emerged as a valuable short-term replacement. Robertson only came on to take his place after the hour mark but had the same problems creating anything meaningful from the left His corners fell flat again.
Much like Kai Havertz, who has papered over Arsenal’s centre-forward crisis occasionally to his own detriment, Tsimikas has done well to reduce the scrutiny on Liverpool’s long-term planning in his position.
Robertson’s form has caught them off guard to an extent but there has been a touch of nostalgic wishful thinking at play too, the Scotsman having won eight trophies on Merseyside including a Premier League title and the Champions League.
Were the lines blur for owners Fenway Sports Group is in the detail of Slot’s progress – the Dutchman is way ahead of schedule in the rebuild, muddying the waters as to whether Liverpool should be strengthening in January to fireproof their title challenge or waiting and seeing how it plays out. By Kat Lucas
Arsenal
There will surely be more twists and turns but this felt like a significant day in the Premier League title race as one challenger won in the best way possible and another faltered in the worst.
Arsenal didn’t even lose but squandering a two-goal lead at home to Aston Villa to draw felt as good as a defeat. That it followed Liverpool’s last-ditch salvage mission at Brentford made the gut punch hurt even more.
Initially, the Gunners had coped well with two setbacks. A sense of dread washed over the fans making their way to the Emirates 75 minutes before kick-off when William Saliba’s name was missing on the teamsheet.
The Frenchman picked up a hamstring injury during the north London derby and while adrenaline ensured he completed that fixture it had dulled in the days leading up to Villa.
Saliba hasn’t missed much football since establishing himself as an Arsenal regular, starting in 58 of their last 59 Premier League games prior to Saturday, which is just as well as they tend to struggle without him.
Since the start of the 2022-23 season, Saliba has missed 13 of a possible 98 league matches; Arsenal have won only five of them. By Oliver Young-Myles
Read more: Arsenal are half the team without William Saliba
Nottingham Forest
I wonder if the last 30 minutes, including extended stoppage time, might be the kick up the backside that Nuno Espirito Santo will use as motivation for Forest over the next four months. Southampton’s attempted comeback was a reminder of just how fine the margins are and how little Forest can afford to drop off as they look to punch several weight divisions above their size.
It was a little surprising to see Forest invite such pressure because a) it’s something that they were very bad at doing in their first two seasons in the league and, b) it’s something that they have been brilliant at since September. Forest have played 12 games against teams currently in the bottom half and have 34 points from a possible 36, three more points than anyone else in the division.
Also, it is now nine matches without being behind in the league for Nuno’s side, another ludicrous statistic. Only Manchester City have spent a higher percentage of their matches in the lead. Only Arsenal have spent a lower percentage of their matches trailing.
Man City
It is games like the huge win over Ipswich Town that put football “crises” into perspective.
Manchester City on their worst run for years, an inexplicable seven-game winless run that turned into one win in 13 from October through to Boxing Day, supposedly already out of the Premier League by the half-way point.
How had they been so sloppy in the transfer market? How had Pep Guardiola let his squad get so grey and old and slow? Where had the manager’s powers gone?
And for all the talk of chaos, City leapt back into the top four. The crisis subsiding, they are unlikely to relinquish it. By all probabilities, they should qualify for the Champions League.
After everything they’ve done, all the records they’ve broken and opponents they’ve crushed, you probably can’t rule them out of the title race, just yet.
They are 12 points behind Liverpool, who have a game-in-hand. But Manchester United once successfully chased down a 12-point lead at Christmas from Newcastle United in 1996.
Not exactly the same, sure. Less time to go, Liverpool have that extra game. But this is an extraordinary City side under an extraordinary manager who do extraordinary things.
The spectre of the 115 Premier League charges, and the impending decision of an independent tribunal, follow City, who deny any wrongdoing, wherever they go.
It has all added to the sense of crisis this season. A crisis most clubs would kill for. By Sam Cunningham
Newcastle
Here was a reminder for those working out the sums at Newcastle United that Eddie Howe needs help to fulfil the promise of a season brimming with potential.
Anything has felt possible in recent weeks as Alexander Isak has become the hottest striker on the globe but Bournemouth’s brutal dismantling restores reality at St James’ Park.
A top four opportunity has presented itself but achieving it without addressing some squad frailties for two successive transfer windows is going to be a tall order.
Of course one defeat, however paltry Saturday’s performance was, should not prompt an overreaction.
As many of the 10 of the players who started were under-par which suggests that fatigue might have helped Andoni Iraola’s side to so thoroughly outplay them.
They have a week before Saturday’s trip to Southampton, which feels like the perfect place to relaunch the season.
With successive days on the training ground, Howe usually squeezes a reaction from his players.
But there were a few things here that should set alarm bells ringing from a black and a white perspective. By Mark Douglas
Read more: Newcastle’s defeat to Bournemouth sent a clear message to Paul Mitchell
Chelsea
Play Wolves on Monday night.
Bournemouth
I’m not sure that any team or manager can have a breakout performance 18 months into his tenure, but for some reason this weekend did feel like a significant step forward for Bournemouth and Andoni Iraola. They had beaten Arsenal and Manchester City already this season, but a thrashing of Newcastle – and their nine wins in a row – made people sit up and take notice.
The margin of victory was clearly significant. This was Newcastle’s heaviest home defeat since December 2021 and their heaviest against a non-Big Six team since a 4-1 home defeat against Portsmouth in 2007. It was also Bournemouth’s biggest Premier League away win since 2019. The emphatic nature of the win was against all pre-match expectations.
It’s important, too, that Bournemouth have players out with injury. Premier League supporters tend to spend January opining about what their club will need if it is to match its – or the supporters’ – ambitions for the season, but Iraola is making the best of it. Julian Araujo, Evanilson, Enes Unal, Marcos Senesi, Alex Scott, Luis Sinisterra, Adam Smith and Marcus Tavernier all missed the trip to Newcastle. The three introduced substitutes were Daniel Jebbison, Ben Winterburn and Remy Rees-Dottin.
But more than all of that, it was Bournemouth’s style in outplaying Newcastle that was most impressive. They typically like to sacrifice possession, press high and play direct, but on Saturday Iraola came up with two plans.
Bournemouth looked to start quickly and actually had more of the ball for the first 15 minutes, taking the lead. Then, between the 40th and 70th minutes, they had only 30 per cent possession and used counter attacks. Then, with Newcastle frustrated and puffed out, Bournemouth exposed their frailties with two more late goals. It was a strategic masterclass. If you don’t think that this team has a chance of a top-four place with few other distractions, you haven’t watched them often enough.
Aston Villa
Mauricio Pochettino once described Christian Eriksen as “the brain of Tottenham”. Youri Tielemans is the brain of Aston Villa.
Throughout his time in England, first with Leicester and now at Villa, Tielemans has predominantly played as a deep-lying playmaker. His stats at the Emirates underlined his new role: he had three of Villa’s eight shots and completed just 60 per cent of his passes.
Playing further forward, he is expected to take more risks on the ball. One of his unsuccessful passing attempts was a raking long-distance effort along the floor that would have been one of the passes of the season had Jurrien Timber not stepped in to intercept it. Ollie Watkins would have been clean through on goal.
This is a relatively new ploy from Unai Emery and evidently one that is working. He has picked Tielemans further forward in five of Villa’s last six Premier League games having previously utilised him further back. Villa have earned 10 out of a possible 15 points in that period. By Oliver Young-Myles
Brighton
Brighton were never less than impressive with Kaoru Mitoma, as ever, a relentless nuisance down the left. He provided the assist for the early goal and forced the ball in at the back post for the second.
Carlos Baleba was the glue that held this performance together. A powerful presence in the middle of the park, he was the principal reason for the double withdrawal of Manuel Ugarte and Kobbie Mainoo on the hour. Though he was perhaps fortunate to escape sanction for a tackle on Bruno Fernandes after picking up a yellow for the stranglehold on Joshua Zirkzee, that is a minor quibble.
Manchester United, you felt, had to clobber Brighton hard at the start of the second half but it was the Seagulls who hit the accelerator. They were unlucky to lose a second goal to VAR before Mitoma restored the lead. The movement of Joao Pedro and Danny Welbeck always threatened a third if not, perhaps, in the way it was delivered.
For the travelling Brighton support a comedy third iced the cake, sealing a third successive league win at Old Trafford. The Theatre of Dreams indeed. By Kevin Garside
Fulham
Nobody is sleeping on how good Antonee Robinson has been for Fulham over the last couple of years or more, but it’s still astonishing to watch just how dominant he is at both ends of the pitch.
With Robinson in the team, Fulham’s central midfield can be combative and focused on protecting the defence (they picked Sander Berge and Sasa Lukic against Leicester). Alex Iwobi, who nominally starts on the left, is having the best season of his career because he is able to play wherever he sees fit, knowing that Robinson has that flank to himself.
The numbers alone spell it out. Against Leicester, Fulham’s two central midfielders had 130 touches of the ball between them. Emile Smith-Rowe and Harry Wilson, two two attacking midfielders who played the most minutes (169 between them) shared 98 touches.
Robinson had 112 touches of the ball. He had two shots on target, one from inside the penalty area. He put six crosses into the box from level with the penalty area or closer. He made more interceptions than any other player and the majority of his touches were in Leicester’s half. He is offering the attacking endeavour of a wing-back with the defensive structure of a full-back in a four-man defence.
Brentford
As with nearly everything Brentford do at home, you can see the logic in how they set up. It was a big call to drop Mathias Jensen and throw in 20-year-old Yehor Yarmoliuk in search of more physicality; it inevitably put more pressure on Christian Norgaard and Mikkel Damsgaard but both stepped up and Yarmoliuk did well under an onslaught from Liverpool’s wingers.
When Rico Henry is fit enough to start it will add another dimension. He has been building up his fitness behind closed doors after his brief minutes against Manchester City but when Brentford started to flag towards the end, throwing him or Fabio Carvalho on might have been wise.
That said, there were some tremendous shifts put in – Keane Lewis-Potter chief among them. Thomas Frank won’t feel too aggrieved after watching his side give up 37 shots – the most an away team has had in a Premier League game – and he can hardly be blamed for having wanted the extra bodies in midfield. Things are about to get a lot easier after City and Liverpool, with all of their next five games coming against teams below them in the table. By Kat Lucas
Crystal Palace
It has been coming, but Crystal Palace are now back in rude health under Oliver Glasner. They have taken 19 points from their last 10 games and haven’t lost an away league game since the 1-0 defeat at the City Ground in October. An opposition player hasn’t scored against them in a Palace away game since Ross Barkley on 23 November, six games ago.
There are several explanations, not least the change of shape to 3-4-2-1 that gives Ismaila Sarr and Eberechi Eze licence to roam and stay central when they want to, with the wing-backs overlapping.
But Palace’s biggest cheat code is the combination of Eze and Jean-Philippe Mateta. Watch that first goal against West Ham back: Eze dropping deep to pick up the ball; Eze then driving forward and playing a through ball; Mateta making the perfect run before the pass comes so that he is taking his shot in stride and thus able to combine power and accuracy. It reminded of Morgan Gibbs-White and Chris Wood at Forest this season, another mighty effective attacking central midfielder and centre-forward combination.
Eze has now assisted four goals for Mateta this season. Only one combination in the Premier League (Murphy to Isak at Newcastle) can beat that. And you get the sense that these two are just getting going again.
Man Utd
Andre Onana is an easy target, as goalkeepers are when they fail in the basic function of wrapping two hands on the ball. The more painful point for Ruben Amorim is that this match did not turn on one embarrassing mistake.
Manchester United were second best and losing before Onana’s latest calamity. Six home defeats and counting, five by three goals, is a forbidding telemetry that holds all the clues.
Equally that does not absolve Onana. As fallible as any United keeper since Massimo Taibi, the Cameroonian is one of the many fundamental issues Amorim must resolve if United are to become plausible anytime soon.
Another is the core element on which this great club was built and which remains entirely absent, any semblance of attack. This lack was painfully evident on the afternoon the club marked the passing of its finest goal scorer, Denis Law.
The piped tribute before kick-off was suitably moving but any idea the Lawman’s spirit might be at large among the current crop was dashed inside five minutes, all the time it took for United to capitulate. Again.
Boos greeted the final whistle. It could have been worse, the stadium was a third empty by then. Clearly the supporters are running out of patience. This has a feeling of hopelessness and desperation about it, with no clear solution in sight. How long before the finger is pointed at Amorim? It seems fair to raise the question of his culpability. By Kevin Garside
West Ham
Didn’t think this would be easy, did you Graham? After a fortunate midweek victory over Fulham, West Ham got right back to showing their new manager just how long it will take to turn this club around. Many have tried before him.
(Shameless plug: My Doing the 92 piece on West Ham is coming out on Tuesday and goes into gory detail about just how weird this football club and how it wrestles itself for an identity in the London Stadium, nine years after moving there)
We can talk about the openness in midfield, the absence of a high-level striker due to injuries and the poor recruitment in central defence (an expensive Max Kilman aside). We can point out – as we should – that West Ham failed to have a shot on target and had only 14 touches in the attacking penalty area.
But it’s the lack of discipline that offers the embodiment of this season’s dirge. It’s Edson Alvarez twice being sent off this season for two yellow cards, making daft decisions when already booked. It’s Mohammed Kudus losing his head and getting sent off. It’s Konstantinos Mavropanos repeatedly dashing out to make challenges that he doesn’t have to (and often getting them wrong).
Smart teams that contain players who are certain of their role and have full belief in those around them don’t do things like this. At West Ham it happens an awful lot.
Tottenham
Ange Postecoglou always said this Aussie is not for turning.
Yet, the beleaguered Tottenham Hotspur boss is not totally a man of his word.
At Goodison Park, against a team who came into the contest without a single goal in nine of their previous 11 league matches, Postecoglou went with three central defenders for the first time this season and could only watch on in horror.
There are plenty of mitigating circumstances that would give credence to claims Postecoglou deserves more time, with Spurs remaining without their first-choice back four and goalkeeper, while Dominic Solanke’s absence at Goodison Park made him the 10th first-team absentee.
But the excuses are running thin. Losing a match when you have 10 first-team players out is forgivable, especially away from home. But there is a way to lose that could, and should, cost those responsible their jobs. By Pete Hall
Read more: Tottenham need to sack Ange Postecoglou to save their season
Everton
Erling Haaland’s goalscoring exploits brought the need for an out-and-out No 9 back to the fore on our shores in recent years, but the style with which the Norwegian goes about his business is very much a modern take on the traditional centre-forward.
Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s battering ram display on Sunday very much harked back to yesteryear.
The fact that it was David Moyes in the dugout again added to the nostalgic feel to Everton’s first league win in seven.
To say Calvert-Lewin was suffering from a crisis of confidence under Sean Dyche is an understatement.
A 16-game goalless drought would get to anyone, but the manner of Calvert-Lewin’s 13th-minute finish was not the mark of a misfiring striker, as he turned the Spurs backline inside out before slotting home.
But, as Moyes alluded to, the manner of his performance is what will please a manager hardly renowned for modern innovation.
Calvert-Lewin won three more duels than anyone else on the pitch on Sunday, winning 11 in the air alone. It kept Spurs on the back foot they were never able to pivot off and get any form of foothold in the match.
More pertinently, a player with only 40 shots all season prior to Sunday’s encounter managed six alone against Spurs. The fact he kept coming back for more, when the match was as good as won at 3-0, shows that relentless streak strikers of Calvert-Lewin’s ilk thrive upon has not deserted him amid his struggles for form. By Pete Hall
Wolves
Play Chelsea on Monday night.
Ipswich
Ipswich were on something of a purple patch of two wins and a draw in four.
Before kick-off they were outside the relegation places on goal difference, valiantly keeping up with Everton, Tottenham, West Ham and Manchester United above them. In comparison to City, Ipswich are having a hell of a season.
And yet, they lined up against crisis-stricken City, their entire first-team assembled for around the price of Erling Haaland, with barely a chance.
They had, actually, started well. Organised, diligent, passing fluidly, a few half-chances, City without a shot on goal for the first 15 minutes before they were barely able to shoot without missing it.
Liam Delap, returning against the club he left for first-team football who would make a key striker for plenty of Premier League sides, bounced off defenders and caused problems, winning a free kick from which Omari Hutchinson almost scored.
City looked a little rattled, Matheus Nunes heading a straightforward header out for a corner. A club rocked by recent times struggling to settle.
And then they were three goals up at half-time. And that became six by the final whistle.
For all their hard work, Ipswich’s fatal flaw was that they couldn’t deal with City’s left-hand side, and it proved their undoing.
Ipswich dropped into the bottom three on goal difference – the six conceded in this game a dent that could be fatal come the final day.
“You’re going down with United,” the travelling City fans sang. To which the whole stadium responded with: “You cheating bastards, you know what you are.” By Sam Cunningham
Leicester
The day on which Leicester City fell into a pit of toxic mutiny. This week brought a flicker of good news, every club around them also losing and confirmation that they had somehow avoided PSR sanctions again. But unless Leicester get their act together soon, the EFL may be waiting for them with a paddle.
They have got this so badly wrong. I firmly believe that Steve Cooper would have Leicester in a better position, because he is a coach who prioritises protecting the defence and Leicester have a rotten defence. It may not have been pretty, just as it wasn’t during Nottingham Forest’s first season in the Premier League, but Cooper had a largely Championship-level back line and kept Forest up amid massive upheaval.
Leicester supporters had great complaints about Cooper; I get that. But if you sack a manager 12 league games into his tenure as a promoted club that sits outside the bottom three having lost a manager popular with the players in the summer, you better hope that the next guy works out.
Would Ruud van Nistelrooy even have been high up on Leicester City’s shortlist were it not for two games as a caretaker with Manchester United? If not, it was a ludicrous grasp into the dark to make him their permanent manager. If he would have been, they seem to have made a terrible mistake anyway. Van Nistelrooy has taken four points from a possible 27 and he was mighty fortunate in the two league games he didn’t lose.
The crowd was already turning; they have now lost all faith. There were chants for director of football Jon Rudkin to lose his job on Saturday, while online the ownership of the club was called into question. If relegation does come this season, who knows how the finances work out in the Championship.
This was all so damn predictable. Van Nistelrooy had a style that suggested that he wanted to press high and play front-foot football, but that was always going to leave the defence more exposed. Evidence suggested that they couldn’t cope with some pressure, let alone large spaces in central midfield and out wide.
If that wasn’t bad enough, the move hasn’t made Leicester more prolific or inventive. Across these seven straight league defeats, they have accrued a total xG of 5.2. They have conceded at least two goals in each of those seven games. That maths simply doesn’t stack up.
Who do Leicester beat now? They travel to Tottenham and Everton in their next two, both of whom are clearly creaking themselves, but then Van Nistelrooy hasn’t taken an away point yet. Then comes a run of nine games during which Leicester face eight of the current top 12. They took one point from those corresponding fixtures in the first half of the season.
There is a potential saving grace here: if Van Nistelrooy really isn’t going to improve quickly then they can cut their losses and appoint the firefighter who always seemed the most appropriate fit for this season (whatever the opinion of some supporters in September and October). And I’d pay to watch Sean Dyche deal with a group of players who celebrated at a party by holding up posters of their former manager’s name.
Southampton
Ivan Juric will have been cheered by the half response in the second half, and his Southampton side were actually pretty good for the first 25 minutes at the City Ground, but thoughts must now turn to three all-time Premier League records.
In 2007-08, Derby County “achieved” 11 points in their 38 matches, winning once and drawing eight other games. They also set a joint record with Ipswich, Sunderland and Sheffield United for losing 29 matches in a Premier League season. Again sticking with Derby 2007-08, they took only three points away from home.
Southampton are in danger of breaking all of them. They have already changed their manager and it would seem unlikely that they do so again. Their best player is now injured. They have played 22 matches and have lost 20 of them, have taken six points and have taken just one away from home.
You can do the maths, but still: 16 games to go. Six points required. Three away points required. A need to avoid defeat in seven of their remaining games. That last one looks nailed on to go, sorry.
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