Liverpool breezed past Ipswich Town to maintain the gap at the top of the Premier League, but the big winners of this weekend were Bournemouth. They crushed Nottingham Forest and have now gone 12 games without defeat in all competitions, beating Forest, Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United during that run.
Manchester City may consider themselves back to health domestically at least, coming from behind to beat Chelsea and make it four league wins in five games. City and Newcastle made ground on the top three; there’s going to be a shootout for the European places.
At the bottom, Everton won at Brighton and are probably now already safe under David Moyes. With four months left of the season, we’re surely down to Southampton plus two from Leicester, Ipswich and Wolves to go down. Ruud van Nistelrooy will be delighted to have stopped the rot thanks to a visit to Dr Tottenham.
This weekend’s results
Saturday 25 January
- Bournemouth 5-0 Nott’m Forest
- Brighton 0-1 Everton
- Liverpool 4-1 Ipswich
- Southampton 1-3 Newcastle
- Wolves 0-1 Arsenal
- Man City 3-1 Chelsea
Sunday 26 January
- Crystal Palace 1-2 Brentford
- Tottenham 1-2 Leicester
- Aston Villa 1-1 West Ham
- Fulham 0-1 Man Utd
Liverpool
It wasn’t that he was doing anything particularly badly, but more that it was not all that easy to decipher what Dominik Szoboszlai was brought to Liverpool for.
During his first season on Merseyside, some thunderbolts with power rarely generated by humankind suggested his long-range shooting and willingness to go for goal from all angles were behind the club’s decision to splurge £60m. But those efforts dwindled as the campaign wore on.
As a result, Liverpool’s lack of investment in the summer transfer market raised even more eyebrows – why were the club putting so much faith in a figure without discernible game-effecting traits?
The Hungarian’s first five league starts in an attacking midfield role this season delivered eight shots at goal, only adding to the doubts over his worth to the side. However, something in the last few months, really has changed.
Coming into Saturday’s clash with Ipswich, Szoboszlai’s previous five appearances in that advanced position produced a colossal 24 shots at goal– six against Tottenham and seven at Brentford in his last two league outings for the Reds.
These are coming from all angles, and distances, too – low xG (expected goals). But with everything else going so well around him, Szoboszlai has been granted licence to thrill, and it is working. By Pete Hall
League table
Arsenal
When it happened, from the stands you were wondering if Michael Oliver somehow viewed Myles Lewis-Skelly as the last man, despite being 80 yards away from the Arsenal goal.
From the replays, you could decipher Oliver perhaps saw Lewis-Skelly’s challenge as slightly high, having caught Matt Doherty on the top of his foot, but a red? Utterly absurd.
It was cynical, it was late, it stopped a counter-attack, but it was a stretch to call it “serious foul play”, which was the official line from the Premier League’s Match Centre after VAR backed the on-field decision.
“Unfortunately we’re getting used to it,” Mikel Arteta ended one answer with afterwards, while he added to Sky Sports: “It is that clear that I leave it to you guys. I am absolutely fuming but I leave it with you. Because it is that obvious. I don’t think my words are going to help.”
This questionable decision was all the more ironic as just minutes before Wolves fans had chanted “Premier League, corrupt as f**k” after Oliver had blown for a foul and booked Joao Gomes.
Then the tables turned. “Michael Oliver, it’s all about you,” the Arsenal supporters sang after half-time, aware that league leaders Liverpool were 3-0 up against Ipswich at Anfield. By Michael Hincks
Read more: Michael Oliver’s absurd decision will fuel the fire of Arsenal’s title push
Nottingham Forest
There is little point overreacting to a single terrible defeat, even one that ruined Nuno Espirito Santo’s birthday.
Forest experienced one of those afternoons where everything went wrong. They conceded early, missed chances to get back into the game, were punished by exceptional finishing (Bournemouth’s total xG was 1.78) and then crumpled when Bournemouth aimed to punish such generosity.
But Nuno was right to make the point that, over Forest’s last 135 league minutes, they have conceded seven goals and scored none. Over that small sample size, they have defended set pieces badly, full-backs have allowed crosses into the box too easily, they have been overpowered in midfield and the central defensive pair have lacked cohesive coordination.
None of that was happening before, and it needs sorting this week. Forest’s next five league opponents: Brighton, Fulham, Newcastle, Arsenal, Manchester City.
Read more: The six secrets behind Nottingham Forest’s unlikely title bid
Man City
As far as first touches in the Premier League go, Abdukodir Khusanov’s was about as mortifying as they come. It is to his immense credit that after the error which led to Chelsea’s opener, he eventually recovered his composure and made some crucial interventions.
The opening four minutes of the promising 20-year-old’s Manchester City career induced such a collective wince that as one, the Etihad took to warmly applauding the most basic short passes he completed to Ederson. A heartening attempt to raise his spirits. It might well have had the opposite effect.
First beaten in the air and then heading the ball into the path of Nicolas Jackson, who flicked it to goalscorer Noni Madueke, there was none of the bravado about the young Uzbek that City have embodied in this most wretched of seasons. The expression, one of genuine horror. It does not get much worse.
Except it did, and almost immediately he had overthought his pass and wandered sheepishly back into the mouth of the wolf. The touch felt too cute – he will learn quickly in English football that it is rarely a clever idea to pass into the path of an insurgent Cole Palmer. All that remained was for him to career into his opponent and earn himself a booking. By Katherine Lucas
Newcastle
Newcastle supporters continue to clamour for a right winger before this transfer window is out, but if anyone comes in and replicates Jacob Murphy’s numbers over the first half the season then I’d be astonished. He has contributed 11 goals and assists in 16 league starts.
You can talk up Mohamed Salah as the league’s best player – fair. You can discuss Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest as the surprise packages and nobody would argue. But if you want to pick a most improved player in the Premier League this season, it would be Jacob Murphy.
And if you wanted to know the most interesting statistic, it is that the pair of Murphy and Alexander Isak has led to two more goals in the Premier League than any other assister and scorer combinations. If Isak clearly loves his service, why would you spend money to replace Murphy now?
Chelsea
Enzo Maresca can take no pleasure in this, but he is being vindicated time and again by Chelsea’s biggest underperformers. Take Noni Madueke – you can question why Maresca does not seem to have any real confidence in him after he scored inside three minutes, but he then failed to build on that at all and some abysmal marking allowed Josko Gvardiol to run clear for Manchester City’s equaliser.
He was far from alone in that; Chelsea lacked any real intensity after being gifted the lead and it was certainly not Marc Cucurella’s first rodeo as he allowed Matheus Nunes to do the initial work for Gvardiol’s goal.
But there is only one decisive takeaway from the Etihad: this has to be the end of Robert Sanchez. Again, Maresca knows that very well. He admitted before the game that he was “far from where we want him to be”, having seen him cost his side another needless goal against Wolves.
In all he has now made five major errors this season. That is more than any other player in the Premier League and however much Chelsea have neglected his position in their splurges elsewhere, it has become indefensible. Against City he lost possession nineteen times. One nine. His positioning for Erling Haaland’s goal was unfathomable. By Katherine Lucas.
Bournemouth
From The Score last weekend:
“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.”
Also from The Score last weekend:
“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.”
And play it on repeat with another member of the top six. Bournemouth are absolutely in the conversation for the Champions League and the only difference this weekend is that it is no longer a secret.
Bournemouth have played nine of their 12 league fixtures against the six teams currently above them, they rank second in a table formed of them and those six clubs this season and they have now beaten three of the current top four at home. This is becoming the story of the season.
Aston Villa
The headache from this Champions League hangover will last a little while longer for Aston Villa, who have serious problems at the back.
Villa may have led West Ham but in the end they were lucky to draw, and ahead of Celtic’s visit on Wednesday, Unai Emery has a centre-back shortage that could do some lasting damage.
Tyrone Mings looked distraught when hobbling off in the first half, and with Pau Torres already injured and Diego Carlos leaving for Fenerbahce this week, Emery turned to Lucas Digne, bringing the full-back inside and placing substitute Ian Maatsen at left-back.
The forced change altered the tune and gave West Ham hope of finding an equaliser, with Mings’ injury taking the sting out of a nervy-looking Villa, who were second-best across the park after the loss of their vocal leader at the back.
It was proving a challenge for this new-look four, for Digne in particular, and just minutes after a tracksuit-clad Mings retuned to the dugout to applause in the second half, Villa relinquished the lead they had taken through Jacob Ramsey, caught out at the back post after Edson Alvarez’s perfect cross was headed in by Emerson.
It was no more than West Ham deserved, and while they almost scored a carbon copy moments later, Digne did his goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez no favours with a wayward pass that almost went in. By Michael Hincks
Brighton
If you were to force me to sit in a dark room for an entire weekend, with no access to the outside world, then stroll in on a Monday morning and – for some reason – tell me that Brighton had lost 1-0 at home to Everton and asked me to describe the game accurately to secure my own freedom, I’d be free and eating brunch by 10am.
Brighton would have the majority of possession, naturally. They would spend the majority of the game passing too far away from Everton’s goal for David Moyes to care a jot.
Brighton would have a high number of shots because they would have all of the ball, but the low block would frustrate them into shooting from distance and thus the raw numbers of shots would be misleading. Brighton would end up committing too many players forward and get caught on the counter and then Everton would cling on.
Even by that concrete theory, Saturday followed the pattern unerringly well. Brighton had 16 shots to Everton’s three and yet the away team recorded a higher xG. Nine of Brighton’s 16 shots were from outside the area.
Split Brighton’s season up roughly into unequal halves and you see why this is so predictable. The 14 matches in which they have recorded more possession than their opponents have produced 13 points. The nine games in which they have recorded less possession than their opponents have produced 21 points.
This is not an exact science – in some of the games the difference in Brighton’s possession is only one or two percentage points. But Brighton have made 64 per cent of the total passes or more in 20 Premier League games since the start of last season. They have won three of them: Luton Town (h), Crystal Palace (h), Sheffield United (a).
Fulham
It was only the sixth defeat of the season for Marco Silva, who bemoaned a lack of cutting edge. Ex-Arsenal tricksters Alex Iwobi and Emile Smith-Rowe moved the ball well, frequently combining down the left, but too often the ball failed to find a white shirt.
Behind them Sander Berge was a bruising presence, breaking forward at pace and at will. And at the back Joachim Anderson had one of his easiest games watching Hojlund disintegrate under his nose.
In the hipster league with Brighton, Bournemouth, Brentford and Forest, Fulham are missing a poacher. Raul Jimenez lacks the pace to get past defenders and Adama Traore does not have the wit to make the most of his quick feet, and explosiveness.
However, he had enough about him to swerve the oncoming Martinez and spare both the consequences of the Argentine’s rash intervention. Since there was no contact, Martinez did not meet the threshold for red. Lucky boy. By Kevin Garside
Brentford
Brentford fans should take huge comfort from their two best players against Crystal Palace being Mikkel Damsgaard and Nathan Collins. Both have been largely excellent throughout this season, particularly Damsgaard, finally allaying concerns about Thomas Frank integrating new players into his post-promotion squad.
They are finally creating a new spine to this team, alongside the traditional cast, so much so you can easily forget Ivan Toney’s Saudi Arabia exit. It took Damsgaard, Collins and Kevin Schade time to assimilate, at least a season each, but they are now fundamental pillars of the Frank way.
Damsgaard’s assist for Schade’s winner was his eighth of the Premier League season, the record for most in a top-flight campaign for Brentford with 15 games still to go. Schade has scored six despite starting just 12 games. Collins is one of just eight players born after 2000 to have played 100 Premier League games, deservedly Man of the Match on Sunday for his work against Jean-Philippe Mateta.
The Irishman remains largely underrated, immaculate in the air and tidy in possession. Player by player, Brentford are gradually strengthening their foundations for a long Premier League future. The next areas to target are central midfield and striker, especially with Nottingham Forest’s approach for Yoane Wissa. By George Simms
Man Utd
Rasmus Hojlund is treading in the footsteps of some high-calibre failures at the point of the Manchester United attack.
In the days before Anthony Martial there was Ted MacDougall, a record signing from Bournemouth in the early 1970s, Garry Birtles and Peter Davenport, neither of whom excelled on their arrival from Nottingham Forest a decade later. Ditto Alan Brazil from Tottenham Hotspur.
MacDougall was a punt from Bournemouth, then a lower league staple for whom selling on a player was the only way of making a few quid or creating a stir. United were in steep decline and heading for the second tier. Sound familiar?
Hojlund was reintroduced to the starting line-up here without any real sense that he would make any difference, but what else is Ruben Amorim to do? The alternative is Joshua Zirkzee, and he started the last two games.
Zirkzee, Hojlund, Hojlund, Zirkzee, it’s all the same in this ineffective ensemble. No difference at all, despite the £100m it cost to put them together. Everything fell apart around Hojlund. The ball comes in, fails to stick, he wrestles himself to the ground, appeals to the referee, and on we go.
It is not entirely his fault. He might have thought he was joining a club that played with wingers, wide men who hit the byline and flooded the box with peachy passes. At least that is what it says in the brochure. By Kevin Garside
Crystal Palace
Perhaps it was the weather, perhaps something deeper. Palace had been on one of those six-game unbeaten runs you don’t really notice until it’s gone, having lost just three in their past 17. Victory on Sunday could have put them 11th, above Brentford and in reach of the top half. Maybe this was a continuation of the delayed progress of last season?
But, of course, that next step never came. Could fans really expect anything different? This is a club stuck in a holding pattern, trapped between fear of failure and fear of hubris, condemned to comfortable, shapeless mediocrity for time immemorial. Optimism never lasts long enough to become something real, diluted every time by memories of the last time they dared to hope.
And so we end up here: confecting outrage at a correct VAR call just to feel something. Telling Will Hughes to shoot into traffic from 25 yards, twice, just to feel something. Grasping onto an illusion the club is going somewhere, that progress might be over the horizon, just to feel something. Overreacting to the highs and lows because otherwise everything is just numb and meaningless. By George Simms
West Ham
Imagine what West Ham could do with an actual striker on the pitch, although that said, Lucas Paqueta could have fooled us.
The Brazilian No 10 was a menace at No 9, not only riling the Villa crowd after his prolonged time on the turf when Lucas Digne gave him a dig in the ribs, but thereafter when harrying the hosts’ shaky defence and threatening to score what would have been a deserved winner.
He thought he had late on as well, as did Graham Potter, who seemed to celebrate the disallowed goal for an age after the offside flag went up.
“He was a real handful,” Potter said of Paqueta’s overall display.
“You can play into him because he’s so strong. He worked so hard for the team. He looks like he’s enjoying his football.”
Potter’s side thoroughly outplayed Aston Villa from the moment Tyrone Mings hobbled off, and though there was a remarkable parity in terms of chances – both teams had 14 shots, four on target, six off target and four blocked – it was the Hammers who left for London wondering how they didn’t win.
Maybe with an out-and-out striker they would have, but in that regard they now head into the final few days of the transfer window looking to get a deal done.
Jhon Duran feels like a non-starter, unless they fork out £80m, but interest in RB Leipzig’s Andre Silva appears to be more concrete. His return of one goal this season as largely a substitute for Leipzig does not exactly scream quick fix, but Potter will hope extra options can give this squad a further boost after this promising display. By Michael Hincks
Tottenham
Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham have become the team that every struggling side wants to play.
Crystal Palace failed to win their first eight games until they played Spurs; Ipswich were 10 without a victory; Everton had gone six winless matches; Leicester were on a seven-game losing streak.
With each loss, it is becoming harder to see how Postecoglou survives long enough to see if his prophecy of winning a trophy in his second season comes true.
Each of the last seven managers dismissed by Daniel Levy had Spurs in a higher position when they departed than the 15th place they are now.
Not since October 2008 has a manager left with Spurs lower in the league table when Juande Ramos had them 20th. Ramos incidentally was the last man to put silverware in the cabinet.
Is Levy banking on Postecoglou making good on his trophy promise? That much should become clear over the coming days. By Oliver Young-Myles
Read more: Tottenham fans have turned on Levy – and that usually means only one thing
Everton
There’s a fair chance that Sean Dyche has watched both of Everton’s last two matches and fumed about his own misfortune. David Moyes’ Everton have had 14 shots in their last two matches (both wins) and scored four goals. Earlier this season, Dyche’s Everton had 69 shots over four league games without scoring a goal, so you could see his point.
But there are a few retorts to Dyche’s (entirely fabricated by me) complaint:
- 1) The difference in xG between Moyes’ two wins (2.7 combined) and Dyche’s four scoreless games (4.5 combined) is not as wide. What’s actually happening is that Moyes has already managed to make Everton more efficient in the penalty area, choosing to take their shots closer to goal and recycling possession when appropriate.
- 2) Everton already look far more competent defensively. In conceding two goals against Tottenham and Brighton, they have only allowed an xG of 1.9. Now making sweeping conclusions based around xG on a small sample size is dangerous, but you can see the difference when watching Everton.
They are defending deep and sacrificing possession, but hounding teams on the edge of the box and thus forcing them to shoot from distance. They are stopping crosses into the box more. They are able to soak up pressure and therefore be more effective on the counter because they aren’t always chasing games.
If the sole aim of reappointing Moyes was to avoid relegation (and the length of the contract makes that claim open to some scrutiny), it has almost paid off already. The gap to Ipswich is seven points with a game in hand. Ipswich have only taken seven points from their last 11 matches.
Leicester
On Friday, I wrote that Leicester had lost the recruitment magic that once made them the envy of the Premier League.
Their summer transfer business looked strange and scattergun: £20m on Oliver Skipp, who has been a sub more often than a starter; thirtysomethings Jordan Ayew and Bobby De Cordova-Reid recruited to provide support for a 38-year-old Jamie Vardy; Odsonne Edouard brought in to take up a crucial loan space in the squad.
But credit where it’s due; they struck gold with Bilal El Khannouss. The Moroccan midfield schemer is precisely the type of footballer that Leicester used to target: young and talented from a lower profile league with scope to grow and earn them millions.
Signed for £20m from Genk, El Khannouss is the type of player Leicester could turn a profit in, which is important when they continue to walk a PSR tightrope. The EFL are expected to pounce if the Foxes are relegated.
The Moroccan was their match-winner and standout performer in the win at Spurs that stopped a seven game losing streak. The 20-year-old took his goal brilliantly, wandering into space, advancing to the edge of the area and then sweeping a crisp low finish into the bottom corner and was a threat all afternoon, drifting intelligently into pockets of space just behind Vardy.
Steve Cooper tended to favour Brighton-owned Facundo Buonanotte in the No 10 role, but El Khannouss is certainly Ruud van Nistelrooy’s guy. He has started all 10 of Leicester’s Premier League games under the Dutchman, compared to just three in 12 for Cooper.
More performances like this and he could help pull Leicester closer to safety. By Oliver Young-Myles
Wolves
And the award for the Premier League’s worst passers (and dribblers) in their own defensive third goes to: Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Honestly, against Arsenal, it was atrocious. Heart-attack inducing even for the neutral, the sort of self-inflicted chaos that must be taking years off their supporters’ lives.
They were the masters of their own doom on Saturday, and evidence that sometimes it’s best to just get rid came early on when a hoof from Emmanuel Agbadou led to an Arsenal mistake and one of Wolves’ most promising attacks.
It came to nothing, but what mattered was that it came not from goalkeeper Jose Sa taking a touch too many for 20th time and thus increasing the sense of panic inside Molineux, but from a defender opting to clear his lines instead.
That brings us to Agbadou himself, signed from Reims this month, who had a funny old game but ultimately shone, at least when compared to his teammates.
It may started with misplaced passes, one going out for a throw-in, but it ended with the 27-year-old proving he could yet be a valuable asset in Wolves’ bid to stay up.
The Ivorian showed impressive speed to deny Kai Havertz an opening, and also frustrated Gabriel Martinelli on more than one occasion, and while Wolves may have lost, 1-0 is a scoreline better than most of their fans were predicting – one broadcaster and Wolves fan thought it would be 5-0 before kick-off – and they no longer have the league’s worst defence (huzzah!) either.
It is too soon to say he is plugging the gap left by Maximilian Kilman, but the promise Agbadou showed on Saturday could ease a few fearful fans, especially as Wolves are the bottom three’s best bet of ensuring it is not another season of all three promoted clubs going straight back down. By Michael Hincks
Ipswich
Playing Manchester City and Liverpool in successive games would normally be a pressure-free time to savour, clashes with the game’s elite that act as a reward for all the hard work to get here.
But after being embarrassed at home against City last weekend, Kieran McKenna would have been fearing another demoralising mauling at Anfield on Saturday, with his team coming into the interval bedazzled at 3-0 down.
The visitors improved markedly after the break and started to play the kind of football that got them back to the big time in the first place.
Yes, Liverpool had stepped off the gas, but Ipswich gave their illustrious opponents some concerning moments late on, scoring once and having several good openings to add to their tally.
McKenna was right to highlight his pleasure at the second-half showing after the match. It seemed somewhat strange to be pleased with his team after a 4-1 loss, but Ipswich looked like they were for a psychologically damaging thrashing for the second time in a week. Avoiding such could give them the platform to reset before a crucial clash with Southampton up next. By Pete Hall
Southampton
I’ll be honest: I’m running out of ways to be chipper about Southampton when a 3-1 home defeat to Newcastle didn’t actually feel like too bad a weekend experience.
Leicester winning means that they are even more down than before, leaving Southampton 10 points plus goal difference from even climbing off the bottom.
So here’s what I’ve got: in 1990-91, Steve Bruce was Manchester United’s joint-top league goalscorer with 13, admittedly aided by taking penalties. Jan Bednarek doesn’t take penalties, but he’s currently Southampton’s joint-top scorer in the league.
Keep lobbing balls into the box from set pieces and this team can still leave a lasting legacy beyond low points totals. And I’m sorry that all sounded so damn patronising.
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