BRUSSELS — Newcastle United do not have to worry about Nick Woltemade.
The 23-year-old is a big man in every sense. Sizeable enough to tower over his teammates in the late Brussels sun as they trained at Anderlecht’s stadium ahead of Wednesday’s crucial Champions League league phase game against Bayern Munich but also blessed with the sort of quiet swagger that, you suspect, will eventually make the bewildering barbs that have been coming his way from Germany end up looking rather foolish.
Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, club legend and board member at Bayern, had branded Newcastle “idiots” for coughing up £69m for Woltemade in the final week of the summer transfer window. It was the latest insult hurled Newcastle’s way after Bayern sporting director Max Eberl said the fee paid represented “an act of desperation”. Board member Uli Hoeness also said he wasn’t worth the club record fee.
It all seems a bit like sour grapes from the Bundesliga champions, who are not used to missing out on the best talent from their domestic league, and obscures the fact that Woltemade has made a pretty smart start in black and white.
Pressed into service sooner than had been envisaged due to an injury to Newcastle’s plug in and play option, Yoane Wissa, Woltemade is nowhere near integrated into an Eddie Howe system that is exacting in the standards it demands from players. Neither is he fully ready for the physical exertions of weekly Premier League games.
"I don't think it's a red card!"
"If he goes down holding his face, VAR sends him off!"
"Gabriel is very lucky…"
But for all of that he has two goals in three games and has quietly impressed behind the scenes with both his ability and the way he has handled himself. Aerially he is “better than we thought he was” according to one insider and there is a confidence in his own skin which bodes well for the future.
Woltemade’s Instagram hints at his big personality. He loves his fashion and deliberately wears an over-sized jersey. Handed a large zip-up training top for his first media engagement on camera (the size Dan Burn comfortably fits into), he sent it back asking for an extra large.
There is big potential too, although he is naturally going to get better when he begins to adapt his game to a system that will also need to bend to get the best out of the German. Possessing a workrate and willingness to learn that was enough to persuade owners PIF to sanction the deal (at 23 he falls into the age and potential bracket that gets deals done at Newcastle), Magpies fans should be “all in” on Woltemade.
As much as it would have been fun to hear Howe trade blows with German football royalty, he resisted taking a swipe on Woltemade’s behalf, instead insisting the comments and fee were “irrelevant”.
“The market forces dictate transfers fees – not necessarily any one club,” the Newcastle manager said.
“We’re very pleased to have Nick with us. He’s started very strongly in what has been a difficult period for him because he’s been thrust straight into action with no training time of note with us.
“He’s done really well. We’re really pleased to have him with us and the transfer fee is absolutely irrelevant.”
The 23-year-old has scored two goals in three appearances for his new club (Photo: Reuters)
Having held him back against Barcelona, Newcastle must surely start with Woltemade on Wednesday evening for what feels like a huge game against the Belgian champions. Even if he only manages 60 minutes or so – Howe has taken him off in every Premier League game so far – it is surely worth the risk to give the Magpies’ season lift-off.
Sunday’s late sucker punch from Arsenal at St James’ Park means Newcastle are languishing in the lower reaches of a division they finished fifth in but their only defeats have been against the Gunners, Liverpool (the top tier’s top two) and La Liga leaders Barcelona.
That, along with a draining, distracting summer transfer window, provide context for their problems so far but it was encouraging to hear Howe reject the easy option of explaining the start away.
“Our expectations of ourselves are higher than that and we have to push the group for more. Our expectations of ourselves have to be of the highest form, otherwise we’ll never grow and we’ll never go forward,” he said.
There is also a different feel to Newcastle’s Champions League approach this season. If two years ago it felt like an experience – Jacob Murphy’s wide-eyed reaction to the competition’s theme song betrayed a naivety which ultimately cost them – this time Howe says that only getting through the first stage will be regarded as a success.
They have tweaked their approach subtly, too. They flew and trained at Anderlecht’s Lotto Park (where the game has been switched to due to USG’s ground not matching Uefa standards) rather than doing their prep work in Newcastle, as they had done in 2023.
Newcastle didn’t win a single away game in that campaign but need to make their fixtures count this time around.
“An away win would really elevate us,” Howe said – and he is right, in more ways than one.
I don’t quite know how to put this into words but, although I had never been to Everton’s Hill Dickinson Stadium before, and had driven and walked the nearby streets both before and during its construction, I was immediately hit by a pervading sense that it has always been here.
I suspect the simple explanation is: good design. Everton’s new stadium doesn’t try to be something it is not and doesn’t try to be everything all at once either. It is not entirely made of glass and is not covered by a vast canopy that looks like a circus tent. It is not a rebadged NFL stadium. It is a home of football and feels like a home of football.
You can walk around it and yet it fits snugly into its space. It is sleek without being gaudy, large without being monstrous. It is a plug-in-and-play good experience. If you are going to build a football stadium on a former UNESCO world heritage site then it had better be good; it was worth it.
Inside, the Hill Dickinson Stadium has all the usual trappings: 17 restaurants and lounges, lots of bare concrete and white that gives it a slight Severance vibe, brilliant steep-sided stands and that incredible ability to make you lose all sense of which way the pitch is as soon as you enter the bowels. The pitch view sits somewhere between Schalke and Tottenham, which is a compliment.
But its greatest strength is how it marries together modernity and tradition: orange brick and silver metalwork, the retention of the old dock wall, the thousands of grey bricks in the floor outside (each with a dedicated supporter message), the photo wall at the back of the West Stand, Z Cars blaring out over an extraordinarily powerful sound system that stings your ears without quite making them bleed.
For a while before kick-off, around the mid-level advertising boards, the Archibald Leitch latticework of Goodison Park was displayed. An electronic replication of graft and grit; there could be no more perfect touch and it is a great shame that they are replaced by Stake.com adverts when things get going.
And then the nods to community that will go unnoticed to many but ensure roots extend down further and more quickly. At the southern end of one plaza, Fans Supporting Foodbanks’ purple vehicle collects donations just as it always did at Goodison. In the Bluenose building across the road, the Everton Heritage Society has its own new home. Nowhere will ever match the Church of St Luke the Evangelist on Goodison Road for history, but they will give it a good go.
On Monday, three hours before kick-off, Everton supporters are already gathering. Their explanation to me is simple: the longer they spend here before a game, the more natural it will feel. For all Goodison’s tradition, you couldn’t really spend time close to the ground on matchday in the same way. This is an inclusive Everton experience because there is room to house thousands, not hundreds, outside.
For now, there is a distinct weirdness as if the Hill Dickinson Stadium is a neutral ground or national stadium. That is entirely natural: we all know the same strangeness from moving homes, residing for a while in a building that is simultaneously ours and ours alone and yet entirely unfamiliar.
We have known our beloved football grounds for far longer than any home, but also their environs: the pubs, the food, the walk, the parking spots, the familiar faces walking their familiar paces to their familiar places. The Hill Dickinson Stadium cannot earn that through anything other than time.
The Hill Dickinson Stadium in all its glory (Photo: Getty)
History is a weird concept for football clubs. Fail to respect it and you lose your identity, use it as your identity it will hold you back and tie you to the floor. It is an entirely intangible concept and yet it clings to you like a winter coat.
Goodison felt the same, in its later years. At its best it was an enthralling, motivating whirlwind, but the grand old lady became grouchy thanks to off-pitch incompetence and on-field funk. Those touches of yesteryear – wooden seats, restricted views – became anachronistic as other clubs upgraded. The repeated failed attempts to retire Goodison didn’t help: 1963, 1997, 2006, 2010. It ached for something new.
The first Premier League game “under the lights”, as the Hill Dickinson Stadium announcer was keen to stress, offers a glimpse of a new home at its best, like spending your first family Christmas in a new abode. There was the obligatory pre-match light show (which was awful because all pre-match light shows are entirely awful), but the roar when Michael Keane scored lifted you out of yourself.
Those acoustics also resonated at full-time, when there were audible boos for a home draw that took Everton to ninth in the Premier League. A useful reminder that the crowd is still the same and they always demand better. As one Everton wag said when attending a match for the first time: “The anger and angst is really going to pop here”.
For all the failed projects, Everton’s stadium move has probably come at the perfect time. Were they settling here with the old regime still in place, Farhad Moshiri and Kevin Thelwell overspending and underdelivering to hamstring whichever manager was tasked with lifting Everton out of their pronounced decline, opportunity would surely have been squandered.
Instead, hope can spring eternal. When captain Seamus Coleman delivered a long read feature before Goodison’s final bow, he delivered the missive everybody needed:
“I want us to improve as a football club from every aspect because we have to move on from these past three or four years. We’ve seen recently with other teams how quickly things can change for the better and that must be our goal now to go and be better and be excited for the future.”
Hardly groundbreaking, but Coleman is spot on. For all that the Premier League’s financial elite are insured against repeated failure, the dominance of the division over Europe’s rest (and subsequent increase in European places) has opened a window for the others. With a new stadium and with financial mismanagement now largely off the balance sheet, Everton can be beneficiaries.
And they can do it with style. David Moyes’ remit is no longer to remove the crippling fear of a first relegation in 75 years, but to incorporate attacking flair into a team that in April started a Merseyside derby with a front four of Carlos Alcaraz, Abdoulaye Doucoure, Jack Harrison and Beto. Functionality out, fun in – and woe betide Moyes eventually if he misses the brief.
Tyler Dibling is yet to start a league game for Everton, but there remains the distinct possibility of him, Jack Grealish and Iliman Ndiaye all behind a striker: a whirligig, unpredictable crop of elite table magicians. Ndiaye attempted the fourth most dribbles in the league last season. Dibling was in the top 20 in a rotten Southampton team. Grealish looks keen to make up for three years of slowing down the ball, turning back and playing a safe pass at Manchester City.
This will take time and patience and Everton supporters will run out of one quicker than the other. The squad is small – no manager has used fewer players this season than Moyes. One result of gross transfer waste is that only 12 first-team players were under contract at the end of last season. As such, new contracts for Idrissa Gueye (36), Coleman (36) and Keane (32) made sense. Repeated failure in squad-building can never be overcome in a single year.
But the wider picture is one of great potential. That is the silver lining to failure: a low bar to climb over. It has been eight seasons since Everton last reached 60 points. It is six since they even finished in the Premier League’s top nine. If Leicester, Wolves, Sheffield United, Leeds, West Ham, Brighton, Brentford, Aston Villa, Forest and Bournemouth can all do so (and have in the interim), Everton have little excuse not to reach for the same.
Most importantly, they have their platform and their line in the sand. The Hill Dickinson Stadium is magnificent, the new centrepiece of a regeneration project that will transform an area of Liverpool. You hardly have to read between the lines to use the same metaphor for a club that has been without much at all for much too long. Everton’s future is now.
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Chelsea 1-0 Benfica(Rios OG 18’, Pedro sent off 90+6)
STAMFORD BRIDGE – In the early 2000s, there was a spate of writing about the cult of celebrity. It coincided with the salad days of Jose Mourinho, who as Benfica boss walked out to bursts of white light, cameras clicking hungrily as if he had never been away.
For the Portuguese, back in the Primeira Liga in the twilight years, this was his real homecoming, the name erupting around Stamford Bridge within a minute. To that, he replied with a wave and a kiss. A tacit acknowledgement he may never feel love like it again, for one night only Chelsea fans relished a transportation 20 years back in time.
The yearning for connection has its roots in the present uncertainty after an ambivalent start. The “crisis” has nevertheless been overblown. Despite supposed rumblings of unrest against Enzo Maresca after consecutive league defeats, nobody within these walls has serious doubts, victory over Benfica not entirely convincing but a chance to reinstate his core tenets.
With just seconds left on the clock, Chelsea go down to 10-men as Joao Pedro receives a second yellow…
Among the criticisms, that he has not been bold enough to put his faith in positive prospects like Alejandro Garnacho, turning instead to conservative solutions. The £40m summer addition showed that worth, latching onto Pedro Neto’s cross to force Richard Rios to turn into his own net.
The timing of Mourinho’s return, with scrutiny mounting, was unfortunate. On the other hand, past ghosts do not have to haunt what Chelsea are becoming now. Maresca’s photos don’t yet adorn the walls – an honour reserved for title-winners – while he oversees a quiet revolution. Understated, often underrated, he is in keeping with the “Big Six” coach in 2025, at 45 slotting neatly into the age bracket too.
The magnetism of Mourinho in crisp white shirt and tight-fitting navy jacket has dimmed only a little. Maresca, by contrast, rocked the club tracksuit.
Jose Mourinho walked down the touchline to tell Benfica fans to stop throwing objects at Enzo Fernandez while he was taking a corner pic.twitter.com/yTNILNou5J
The lack of posturing is no bad thing, even if Mourinho’s ability to command the space remains unmatched. As Benfica supporters pelted former charge Enzo Fernandez with missiles, their new leader strode over to the away end to demand they stop.
The ask of Maresca was never that he fill those shoes, but embrace modernity – precisely what Mourinho could never do.
After the defeat to Brighton, the current incumbent conceded he is still learning on the job, a dose of humility the majority of fans accepted. Hauling off Estevao had been the wrong call; here, he was the first sub on. Tyrique George continues to struggle but there was progress for Trevoh Chalobah, rebounding from his weekend dismissal with a decisive tackle to halt Vangelis Pavlidis.
Three plates are being spun: the magnitude of player churn, the injuries, the youngsters being nurtured. Not to mention the red cards, Joao Pedro the latest. Few really believe Chelsea’s state of flux is down to Maresca, rather than the ownership group and their string of superimposed sporting directors.
The surrounding streets still bear as many scarves of Drogba, Lampard, Terry, Hazard, as of current stars. That tells you as much about the wrestle with identity as any fawning over the man that managed those cult heroes.
Maresca has two big selling points – a discernible system that eluded his predecessors, and two trophies. What he needs now is cut-through – that is where from Mourinho, he could learn a thing or two.
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Manchester United insiders fear Ruben Amorim may resign rather than be sacked.
Amorim is understood to be taken aback by how much scrutiny is on a United manager and the knee-jerk reaction to every defeat.
A disastrous defeat to Brentford at the weekend ensured Amorim became the manager with the sixth-lowest points tally after 33 games coached at any club in the history of the Premier League.
Another loss at home to Sunderland at the weekend would pile the pressure on Amorim yet further, with a growing number of supporters calling for a change in the managerial hotseat.
The i Paper has been told, however, that co-owners Ineos is willing to be patient with the beleaguered Portuguese, with Sir Jim Ratcliffe described as “desperate” to give his manager a full season to prove himself.
United lost 3-1 against Brentford on Saturday (Photo: Getty)
Two other sources have insisted there is a chance Amorim could jump before he is pushed.
One insider insisted Amorim will soon have to consider how to preserve his own long-term reputation and added he could “walk away” before his Premier League record becomes any more embarrassing and potentially career-defining.
Saturday’s Brentford defeat was seen as a real setback given the manner of the loss, especially on the back of a success over Chelsea the previous week. Ineos, however, is confident Amorim can learn from mistakes made in that game.
The club are determined to take a long-term view with all the decisions they make, whether that be recruitment, facility upgrades or the hiring and firing of coaching staff.
Club sources are adamant, despite intense speculation, no Amorim replacements are being lined up. The club actively contacted several candidates to replace Erik ten Hag while the Dutchman was still at the Old Trafford helm, but insiders say there has been no repeat of that this time, with faith that Amorim can turn things around remaining.
Ratcliffe is a long-term admirer of Gareth Southgate, ensuring those reports are not going to go away. Contrary to speculation, however, the former England manager has not been contacted by Old Trafford officials over succeeding Amorim.
If results do not improve, there is a feeling that if Amorim does leave, an interim until the end of the season could be the way Ineos goes. Michael Carrick, who left his role as Middlesbrough manager at the end of last season, is one potential option.
Amorim has been joined in training by the one and only member of United’s “bomb squad” who did not leave the club in the summer – Tyrell Malacia – this week.
The 26-year-old, who almost joined Spanish club Elche and Turkey’s Eyupspor before the summer transfer window closed, initially trained on his own, along with members of the coaching staff, but was then integrated into the Under-21 squad.
Having held a meeting with Amorim this week, Malacia has been brought back into the first-team unit and is training with the rest of his teammates.
United insist this was always going to be what happened with Malacia and it is not a reaction to recent results or injuries.
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HILL DICKINSON STADIUM — It’s a sign of how hard it is to truly fail as an established club in the Premier League that West Ham United, whose last two managers have performed pathetically and who are run as a fiefdom by a 76-year-old bloke no supporter believes is right for such responsibility, have responded to their latest calamity by appointing the most overachieving Premier League manager of last season.
Nottingham Forest’s weirdness is West Ham’s gain. Nuno Espirito Santo has been out of work for days, not months, but sees no need for a break because the rapidity of the messy City Ground descent was so pronounced. Proving his former owner wrong for appointing and backing a new sporting director over him can be a powerful fuel.
A lurch back to the past?
Nuno is pragmatic like Moyes, but there are key differences (Photo: Getty)
There has been some media chatter over the last few days that West Ham appointing Nuno is proof that they should never have allowed David Moyes to leave, a 16-month gotcha. Which… maybe. But then Moyes was out of contract and had won five of his previous 25 matches. Moyes leaving was partly about chasing a different dream, but also because he had only beaten Luton, Wolves, Freiburg, Everton and Brentford over a period of five months.
Nor is it fair to label Nuno exclusively as some gnarled, dour defensive master; Forest did score 58 league goals last season including a seven, a four and five threes. Too often, pragmatism is used as a synonym for defensiveness. Instead it is the antonym of dogmatism, a refusal to stick steadfastly to one principle in favour of using one that best suits the ingredients. Sounds an awful lot like logic, doesn’t it?
Still, this is West Ham re-entering an age of pragmatism and an abandonment of a new age of possession-based play, after Julen Lopetegui failed and Graham Potter failed harder. Potter is a manager who you appoint when you have built the system to fit him. West Ham haven’t even bothered drawing blueprints for at least 20 years.
After two training sessions, and without his usual coaching staff alongside him yet, there were signs of what West Ham will try to be under Nuno. Jarrod Bowen and Crysencio Summerville will be the potent counter-attacking wingers, although Summerville is wasteful. Lucas Paqueta will play Morgan Gibbs-White, the central midfielder with licence to roam. Kyle Walker-Peters and El Hadji Malick Diouf will overlap from full-back when possible, but be expected to sprint from and towards their own goal.
They were different and they were improved. The attack that produced the second-half equaliser was exactly what Nuno will demand: a full-back overlapping a counter-attacking winger and an overload at the back post where the best attacking player finds space and scores. They largely controlled the match from that moment onwards, bar a late Everton flurry.
The hurdles Nuno faces
There are two obvious eventual flaws to this plan. The first is that to counter attack successfully you must soak up pressure effectively, and recently West Ham have had the defensive resilience of damp tissue paper. Beto and Michael Keane are two of the less subtle penalty-box presences; both were given four yards of space by miserable markers. Let me just say now: Konstantinos Mavropanos is not Nikola Milenkovic. That will have to change.
More broadly, Nuno must also cope with a club in the centre of an angry existential storm. During the first half on Monday, away supporters called both Karren Brady and David Sullivan the worst of all the words and demanded that the entire board be sacked. This fanbase is in favour of this appointment, and they are lucky to have Nuno. But they know that no man can hold back the tidal wave of incompetence forever.
Nuno will guarantee a tactical identity, which is more than can be said for Potter’s beigeball, a fragmented assortment of half ideas that no player ever seemed convinced by. West Ham will mean something on the pitch and it would be surprising if he did not eventually take this team away from its latest short-term emergency.
Repeated short-term emergencies are usually the most salient symptom of long-term malaise; that is a crisis West Ham supporters will fight against and Nuno must distract his players from. There were easier jobs to take and most would have come after a period of rest and recuperation.
It is that chaos that has brought West Ham roughly back to where they were, in 2018 and again in 2024 when Moyes left. They need someone to deliver in the now not build for tomorrow, because their house has no stable foundations anyway. For that remit, they could have appointed nobody better and available.
Sunderland’s flying start to the Premier League season may have surprised the wider footballing world but it is no shock to those inside the club.
The Black Cats always believed their blueprint would give them a better chance of survival than some of the clubs that have been promoted and then fallen straight back through the relegation trapdoor.
But with 11 points on the board, there is a sense that they have the perfect platform to survive and thrive this season.
This is how they got here – and why they are here to stay.
Granit Xhaka
Granit Xhaka’s leadership is rubbing off on his teammates (Photo: Getty)
There was a moment during a break in play during Sunderland’s 0-0 draw at Crystal Palace earlier this month that felt instructive. While half of the visiting team went over the touchline to listen to head coach Regis Le Bris, there was another crop of players huddled around Granit Xhaka, listening intently to the midfielder delivering a speech about the importance of concentration.
Xhaka isn’t just one of the team’s most important players, he is also one of their leaders and it says much about Le Bris’ management that he is happy for the Switzerland international to assume that role. “It’s a self-policing dressing room,” one source says. For all that Le Bris is the biggest voice during the week, he leaves it to Xhaka and other influential players to deliver the messaging on match days.
It helps that Xhaka is delivering on the pitch. A wonderful assist – his third of the season – was the icing on the cake of one of the most complete performances from a holding midfielder you will see this season. Alongside Noah Sadiki, who is looking like another astute piece of business, there is a fine engine room partnership developing with the 20-year-old doing much of the leg work to allow the 33-year-old veteran to shine.
The culture
When Sunderland were in advanced talks with players in the summer, they sent a two-and-a-half minute video over WhatsApp to showcase the city, club and culture they would be joining. It is inspirational stuff, apparently, splicing together what it means to represent the Black Cats.
“Buy in,” one insider calls it. Extensive due diligence was done on the characters who arrived in the summer and, to a man, they seem like impressive people. Sadiki can speak four languages, for example. They have been sold a vision of “putting Sunderland back on the map” and there is genuine ambition to make a mark this season.
“They don’t see themselves as some great underdog story,” a source says. “They expect to win games in the Premier League and, perhaps because they’re young, there’s tremendous belief.” They will go to Old Trafford this weekend expecting to beat Manchester United.
Robin Roefs
In a summer of eye-watering spending across the Premier League, there is a very convincing argument to be made that the £12m Sunderland paid NEC Nijmegen to sign Robin Roefs might be the best money spent.
You can understand why others didn’t take the plunge. There wasn’t much of a body of work to call on – less than 40 senior games in the Eredivisie – and there were more experienced goalkeepers on the market for risk-averse recruitment teams.
Robin Roefs has arguably been the best signing of the summer (Photo: Getty)
Enter Sunderland, who are never afraid to crunch the numbers and take a calculated gamble. Their conviction has absolutely paid off so far. Roefs made six big saves at Nottingham Forest to add to match-winning or saving performances against West Ham on the opening day and at fellow Premier League surprise packages Crystal Palace earlier this month.
Sunderland were seeking a definitive upgrade on Anthony Patterson and they have just that. His command of his penalty area is seriously impressive, he carries himself impeccably and at just 22 seems to have a seriously impressive future ahead of him.
If Sunderland deserve praise for recruiting character as well as capable players, Roefs must be near the top of that list. He exudes authority in his penalty area and in the dressing room.
Regis Le Bris
A singular, driven character, Le Bris is an absolute workaholic. Consistently first in and last out at the training ground, insiders describe a man who is consumed by the role and “gives everything” to it. He is also hugely ambitious, always seeing himself as someone who would manage in the Premier League, and has been compared more than once to Arsene Wenger.
Tactically he has taken to the Premier League very smoothly but his Sunderland team are not wedded to a philosophy. “Pragmatic” is how he describes himself and his Black Cats have been built not to shirk any of the physical demands of the top flight.
Sources speak of an alignment between him, director of football Florent Ghisolfi and owner Kyril Louis-Dreyfus which has allowed the recruitment process to be seamless. They absolutely back him.
Ruthlessness
One insider put it fairly succinctly: “If we’d gone into a Premier League season with last year’s squad we’d have got relegated.”
That belief informed the urgency with which Sunderland recruited and invested. In almost every position they were looking to upgrade and The i Paper understands that there is scope to recruit further in January if they need to. They had scouts out in France last weekend.
Le Bris is amiable, polite and unassuming in public. But the standards he drives are high and the way Sunderland have been able to move up a level this summer sent a message to the players who were already at the club – no-one can feel too comfortable.
Sunderland have benefited from a fixture list that, with hindsight, has been kind.
They have played a struggling West Ham and the two toughest games on paper have been against Villa and Forest who are both in the midst of a transition period. But they also went to Palace and earned a battling point.
The buzz around the city is fantastic and there is a feeling inside the dressing room that they deserve to be where they are. This is a confident bunch that will fancy their chances when the bigger games – and sterner tests – start.
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There is nothing wrong with the foundations in the house that Eddie Howe built.
Consider this: despite a worrying start to their Premier League campaign Gabriel Magalhães’ late, late header was only the fifth goal they have conceded this season.
It meant Arsenal joined Liverpool as only the second team to breach Newcastle’s defence in the league.
So far only four teams have conceded fewer and the three teams that have beaten the Magpies sit in the top two positions in the Premier League and at the summit of La Liga.
So it is definitely not time to panic, even if Newcastle really need to sign off for the international break with a pair of wins against Union Saint-Gilloise and Nottingham Forest to soothe nerves on a testy Tyneside.
Howe faces a stiff test of his managerial ability after this poor start (Photo: Getty)
The Magpies lie in 15th place heading into a pivotal week of their season but this is not Graham Potter face-swap territory.
Ruben Amorim is trying to bash square pegs into round holes – Howe has spent weeks of this campaign without any pegs at all.
We know he has a formula to win and they probably deserve more points than the six they have so far.
Does that mean the Newcastle manager will check in for the flight to Brussels on Tuesday with a bounce in his step? Of course not. He cut a devastated figure at St James’ Park and spoke of “distress” and “absorbing blows” in the aftermath of the Arsenal game.
The mood music undoubtedly feels glum and Newcastle have some major issues to solve. Moreover it is still a few weeks yet until the cavalry, in the shape of big striker hope Yoane Wissa, arrive on the scene.
Nick Woltemade, for all that he has two goals in three Premier League games, is going to take months to look truly at home in a system that is particular and exacting and doesn’t look a natural fit for a player whose natural inclination is to drop deep.
It is tempting to lay the blame for all of this on Alexander Isak’s departure but perhaps the problems lie a little bit deeper. Construct a Premier League table over the course of the calendar year and Newcastle are only a smidgeon above mid-table.
Their 40 points from 25 games have them sitting eighth, just a point above Brentford and two above Everton. They are below Brighton, and no one is making much noise about the Seagulls right now.
It has not been a smooth start for Woltemade despite his two goals (Photo: AP)
To emerge from the mid-table pack Newcastle need to start packing a punch. More specifically their established players need to step up because Anthony Gordon, Sandro Tonali, Anthony Elanga, Harvey Barnes, Bruno Guimaraes and Jacob Murphy have a single goal between them. For all the pace, poise and attacking potential of that pack it feels like a risible return.
Gordon was especially below-par on Sunday and remains a shadow of the player that stole the show in the 2023-24 season. We have heard much about the work that has gone into preparing for this campaign but against Arsenal, a team who have seriously considered signing him, he too often took the wrong option and was hauled off with 23 minutes remaining.
But that was on the back of time spent on the training ground reinforcing fundamentals and giving players some home truths in crucial one-on-one meetings. With such a hectic schedule, micro-management might be tougher. A difficult season isn’t about to get easier for Newcastle’s manager.
Liverpool won the Premier League at a canter last season and are once again top of the table.
Yet Arne Slot has more than a little food for thought, not least the impact of Saturday’s defeat to Crystal Palace – sealed by Eddie Nketiah’s 97th-minute winner.
But then the Dutchman knows all about late drama: this season, all Liverpool’s victories bar one have come by a single goal, scored in the 100th, 83th, 95th, 92th, 29th and 85th minute respectively.
Even when they beat Bournemouth 4-2 on the opening weekend, the game was level until the 88th minute.
The result is that Liverpool’s haul of 15 points in six league games, a run of five wins ended by Eddie Nketiah, seems to flatter them, despite a summer net spend of around £260m (and a gross of more than £400m).
Only one of those big-money signings, Hugo Ekitike, has really hit the ground running and three significant holes in Liverpool’s squad were highlighted again by Palace on Saturday.
Slot has only one trustworthy centre-half
The biggest worry for Liverpool fans must surely be centre-back, where Ibrahima Konate does not currently merit his place but starts by default, because his deputy is Joe Gomez, a player Liverpool were willing to let leave this summer.
Konate (right) was outplayed by Mateta on Saturday (Photo: PA)
Konate was tormented by Jean-Philippe Mateta on Saturday, and when he was eventually replaced, midfielder Ryan Gravenberch moved to partner Virgil van Dijk, which cannot be a long-term solution.
“Him and Van Dijk have been a good partnership and have done really well together, but his individual errors at this moment in time [are] just making the back line look a little bit nervy,” said ex-England defender Micah Richards on Match of the Day.
“Liverpool are always good in defence, Van Dijk always marshals the back line, but they give Palace too many opportunities for no actual reason. It was just being sloppy, and that’s so unlike Liverpool.”
Marc Guéhi assist, Eddie Nketiah finish.
Beating Liverpool to remain unbeaten right at the end. Scenes.
Beyond Gomez, no one could have predicted the ACL injury suffered by Giovanni Leoni, but the 18-year-old was a signing for the future anyway. His absence leaves Liverpool alarmingly thin in central defence: after Gomez, the next cab off the rank is Rhys Williams, who spent last season on loan at Morecambe in League Two.
There was no shortage of irony that Liverpool were undone by failing to clear two Palace set pieces, and that it was Marc Guehi who won the header for the winner. Were it not for a year-long game of brinksmanship that Liverpool lost, Guehi would have been defending not attacking that long throw.
The problems do not end there.
There is still no first-choice right-back
Conor Bradley is a work in progress and was hooked at half-time at Selhurst Park for another midfielder, Dominik Szoboszlai, to play there. Substitute Jeremie Frimpong is at least a natural in that position, but his stock will have fallen after Slot blamed him for leaving Nketiah free to score in stoppage time. Trent Alexander-Arnold’s absence is already being keenly felt.
Is Milos Kerkez really deserving of a starting place?
And the other side of back line, Milos Kerkez has already been the subject of a first-half hook this season after getting booked at Burnley because Slot did not trust him to avoid a second one. He is still though keeping Andy Robertson out of the team, but no one is quite sure why.
“It was the basics that we didn’t do well,” Van Dijk said after defeat to Palace.
“Sometimes you can have these days. Hopefully this is the only day this season that we do that.”
After all the money Liverpool have spent, the pressure is on to make sure these days don’t start adding up.
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Newcastle vs Arsenal might be the best Premier League fixture for the neutral these days and its late drama evaporated any talk of Liverpool having a free walk at the title, Gabriel’s header sparking jubilation one mile up in the Geordie sky where Gunners fans celebrated.
Crystal Palace were the other big winners of this weekend, magnificent and monstrous in their win over the champions to sit third in the table. Sunderland come next because they are defensively resilient and won away.
At the bottom, Aston Villa kickstarted their season, Nottingham Forest lost again and Wolves finally got their first point. If the promoted clubs keep winning, relegation is going to actually be interesting in 2025-26.
Here is one piece of analysis on each of the top flight clubs who played this weekend (in reverse table order)…
This weekend’s results
Brentford 3-1 Man Utd
Chelsea 1-3 Brighton
Crystal Palace 2-1 Liverpool
Leeds 2-2 Bournemouth
Man City 5-1 Burnley
Nott’m Forest 0-1 Sunderland
Tottenham 1-1 Wolves
Aston Villa 3-1 Fulham
Newcastle 1-2 Arsenal
Familiarity breeds contempt at Wolves
“The difference is now we are working together,” Vitor Pereira said after Wolves’ best performance of their league season so far. “Before, we didn’t have time to work together. Now, everybody knows what we want, we can play in different systems.”
That is obviously true, but it was also interesting to see how Pereira has rolled back time a little to spark this improvement. Last weekend against Leeds, Wolves’ 10 outfield starters included six players (Emmanuel Agbadou, Yerson Mosquera, Jackson Tchatchoua, Ladislav Krejci, Fer Lopez, Tolu Arokodare) who were not at the club a year ago.
Santiago Bueno is in the perfect place to stab the ball home for his first Wolves goal! pic.twitter.com/GYLeCEdojq
Against Tottenham, the seven most defensive players who started for Wolves were all there a year ago bar Krejci. Cue a great deal more defensive organisation and a first point of the season.
West Ham
Play Everton on Monday night.
It’s not all bad news for Burnley
Let’s not worry about the result: over the last 11 meetings between Burnley and Manchester City at the Etihad, Burnley have lost all 11 and conceded goals at a rate of more than four per game. These are the established chasms in the Premier League.
So instead let’s give some love to Jaidon Anthony. Burnley’s top remaining goalscorer from last season was handed a huge amount of responsibility to carry the team’s attacking threat.
We are six games into the new season and Anthony has already surpassed his highest goals total in a Premier League season (three) and is a counter-attacking threat far beyond any of his teammates. Burnley have the second top scorer in the division – fun!
Nottingham Forest are in a relegation battle
Forest have failed to keep a clean sheet this season (Photo: Getty)
Don’t let anybody tell you that Nottingham Forest aren’t in a relegation battle. They have not won since the opening day and that now feels like a different era after their inability to take chances against Sunderland.
The problem is this: Forest were excellent last season at keeping clean sheets and being efficient in the final third; now they can’t keep clean sheets and have become frustratingly inefficient in the opposition penalty area.
The style has changed completely, but Forest have never been competent with possession. Of the 26 times they have had more than 50 per cent possession since promotion, they have only won four times. Their possession figure on Saturday (64.9 per cent) was their highest since promotion, beating last weekend’s record. From those two games they have taken a single point against promoted sides. Problems.
Aston Villa’s season is up and running
As Aston Villa’s players ran out onto the pitch at Villa Park on Sunday, Elton John’s I’m Still Standing blared out over the PA system, an unsubtle message that the events of the last month had not changed the ambition or potential of this team. Over the next two hours, Villa’s players proved it.
A goal down and with Tyrone Mings injured, things looked bleak. But then Ollie Watkins scored his first goal of the season, Emi Buendia became the first half-time substitute in Premier League history to score and assist within 10 minutes of coming on and Villa’s full-backs finally played with verve to supplement the attack.
This was the first time that Villa have come from behind to win a league game since February, a result that sparked a run of eight wins in nine games. Unai Emery’s team are up and running again.
Newcastle pay an emotional price
On 80 minutes, I jotted down on a notepad that Nick Pope had been the best player in the match. The lingering threat of Aaron Ramsdale had been firmly extinguished by the then best defence in the Premier League and Pope’s magnificence with three fine diving saves.
And then Pope erred. With Mikel Arteta urging his side forward and Eddie Howe pleading for calm, Pope gathered a ball and attempted a high-risk through pass to Anthony Elanga that fell short by roughly thirty yards. Arsenal regained possession and immediately won a corner, from which they scored the winner. Howe looked distraught and angry on the touchline.
Man Utd’s lack of aggression sets the tone
We are surely entering the end game. Erik ten Hag was almost sacked (and should have been sacked) after finishing eighth in the league. So here is a fun fact: Manchester United have never been in the top eight under Ruben Amorim. He has had 10 months, been backed and everything has got worse. That is a sackable offence now.
The pathetic performance level on a consistent basis is summed up best by how United start their games. Last season, they ranked 18th in the Premier League for their first-half performance, leading only five of their 38 matches at half-time and scoring more first-half goals than only Southampton and Leicester City.
That pattern has dogged Amorim throughout and it suggests that his players are not comfortable in what they are doing and how they are being set up. Since his first game in charge, no Premier League team has conceded the first goal in more matches than Manchester United (21 times).
Last season, with Thomas Frank liking his team to play on the counter and with Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa at the club, Brentford were really good at creating chances from longer, direct balls. Only two teams completed more passes of 30 yards or more – Everton and Bournemouth.
Bruno Fernandes is denied from the spot by Caoimhin Kelleher to keep Brentford in the lead
Keith Andrews has tried to change that style; Brentford only rank 10th for that long pass statistic. But in each of their last two home games, Brentford have taken the lead through Jordan Henderson playing a long pass from his own half to a striker running onto the ball. Kevin Schade and Igor Thiago are not as good as Mbeumo and Wissa, but this can still work the same.
Everton
Play West Ham on Monday night.
Why Longstaff is a game-changer for Leeds
Firstly, bear in mind that Sean Longstaff has only started four of Leeds’ six league games so far. Secondly, I am happy to accept that he is being included here largely because he scored one goal and assisted another against Bournemouth.
But it is Longstaff’s energy in midfield that makes him a potential game-changer for Daniel Farke. He ranks second in the Premier League (behind Tyrick Mitchell) for tackles won and top for tackles in the midfield third of the pitch.
He is also the highest contributor at Leeds for shot-creating actions (pass, shot or dribble leading to a shot). Find yourself a midfielder who can do the lot (at an excellent price).
Brighton have hit the jackpot with Minteh
Minteh is proving to be a real handful for defenders (Photo: Getty)
Yakuba Minteh was excellent in flashes last season – 10 league goals and assists was a fine return – but he also looked very raw. Understandable after joining from Newcastle and having played his football in Denmark and Netherlands.
So far in 2025-26, he has arguably been the best young player in the league. Last week he rounded Guglielmo Vicario to score; this week he produced an exquisite cross with his left foot for Danny Welbeck’s equaliser.
But what I liked most – and Fabian Hurzeler probably thinks the same – is how he hounded Chelsea defenders to help create the third goal. That intense pressing is so key to Brighton’s system working and Minteh has so much energy (even in the final minutes of a match he started).
Fulham suffer for King’s reputation
It is impossible to know if Josh King would have been booked for simulation if he hadn’t been rightly punished for the same offence last week. Being known as a diver is a non-ideal reputation for any player because it definitely sticks in the mind of officials.
He might also have got a penalty had he not gone down early, for Emi Martinez certainly caught him and didn’t get anywhere near the ball. But by clearly heading for ground a full half second before the contact came, the slow-motion replays made it clear that King was trying to win a penalty and as such the decision was understandable (and probably correct).
Marco Silva should have a quiet word, because it detracts from a fine start to his Premier League career.
Chelsea’s game management is desperate
One of the advantages of having a deep squad (after a massive spend) is that your manager should be capable of changing the game from the bench. Last season, Chelsea’s 140 substitutes were involved in 12 goals, fewer than Liverpool, Arsenal and Aston Villa around them.
This season, that has got worse; Enzo Maresca is actively making Chelsea worse with his changes. You can point to brainless decision-making for their two red cards in their last two games, but Maresca took off Estevao and Pedro Neto against Manchester United and lost any counter-attacking threat.
So what happened this week? He took off an attacker and a midfielder for two defenders, sat deep with less of a counter-attacking threat, conceded an equaliser, brought off one of the two remaining attacking players left on the pitch for another defensive player and then conceded twice more.
Man City’s new creator-in-chief
Moving on Kevin De Bruyne and Jack Grealish in the same summer created an opening for a new creative force at Manchester City and Jeremy Doku has stepped into that breach. He is already halfway towards matching his assist total in the Premier League last season.
You can see the impact with your eyes – confidence, end product, building of relationship with Erling Haaland – but the numbers detail it too. Last season, Doku took on a man 201 times and only 13 of them directly led to a chance being created. He is almost halfway towards that chance-after-take-on figure and we have played six games (and Doku has only started four of them).
Bournemouth rediscover a rare old habit
This was the Premier League weekend of late goals. On Saturday there were eight goals scored in the 90th minute or later, a competition record for a single day.
For Bournemouth, a rare one and a precious one. In the first half of last season, Andoni Iraola’s side had a useful habit of taking points in second-half stoppage time: two against Everton to turn defeat into win, defeat into draw against Aston Villa and West Ham, draw into win against Ipswich.
That Ipswich goal on 8 December 2024 was the last time that Bournemouth had changed the game in stoppage time. A handy time to end a 10-month drought.
Sunderland’s defence is overperforming brilliantly
The adage will always remain true: a fine defence is more likely to keep you up as a promoted club than a prolific attack. So there was some understandable uncertainty at Sunderland with their new personnel. Of their seven most defensive personnel to start against Forest on Saturday, six were summer signings.
Omar Alderete's goal proves the difference as Sunderland take all three points! pic.twitter.com/9Tre2sY21p
But who cares eh? Sunderland rank second in the division for clearances, first for blocking crosses into the box, third for the saves made by their goalkeeper and second for winning aerial duels. They are in the top six because they have conceded four goals and because Regis Le Bris has organised this new defence magnificently.
Tottenham’s open-play chance creation is a problem
Nobody is going to panic when Tottenham are third in the league, but their attack is absolutely not firing at the moment. Having created lots of chances against Burnley on the opening weekend, Thomas Frank’s team haven’t managed more than 1.3xG in a league or European game since.
This is largely the result of unfamiliarity (over their last four league games, Spurs have started four different front threes, three different midfield combinations and three different full-backs combinations), but the point still stands.
From their last five matches in Europe and the league (Wolves, West Ham, Bournemouth, Villarreal and Brighton), Tottenham have a combined open play xG of just 2.88. Worth keeping an eye on.
Crystal Palace deserve all the praise in the world
There is a tendency to focus on the failure of the humbled elite club in these situations, but stuff that. Crystal Palace are on an 18-game unbeaten run (and can equal their club record in midweek) and in that time have played Liverpool (three times), Chelsea, Aston Villa (twice), Arsenal, Tottenham and Manchester City. They are legitimately brilliant.
Oliver Glasner has everything right. The system fits the players at his disposal. He is an inspirational motivator without resorting to chest-beating passion. He asks those players to press high and play quickly but is also a majestic defensive organiser. They are capable of swarming over any team when they get their tails up.
Also, Palace supporters have every right to feel aggrieved by being demoted to the Conference League. But the comparatively gentle fixtures should allow a fine European journey and enable them to reserve energy for what might be a magical league season. Glad all over? Try joyous.
With 12 minutes of normal time left, Gary Neville on Sky Sports said that Arsenal had to show that “they could win a game like this”. Given that they were trailing 1-0, I thought it a bizarrely hasty thing to say; concentrate on getting a point first. It turns out – spoiler alert – that Neville knows more about football than me.
This may only be a win in the context of one afternoon, but it sure didn’t feel like it at full-time. We finally saw Arsenal chase a game in hell-for-leather fashion rather than the precise sideways passes and the wait-for-a-lapse-in-concentration strategy. And when you try to cause chaos, chaos usually happens.
This is the Arsenal that can win the league, I’m sure of it. Not the one that tries to play pretty and precise but the one that plays on the edge and takes risks to make things happen. It’s also roughly 45 times more fun to watch.
The good news is that Florian Wirtz has created 10 chances, ranking him 11th in the Premier League and second at Liverpool. The bad news is pretty much everything else. Arne Slot brought Wirtz back into the league team and changed his formation to a 4-2-2-2, presumably to try to get Wirtz on the ball more. It didn’t really work and Slot changed it at half-time.
In the Bundesliga, Wirtz was repeatedly able to receive the ball, turn and either drive forward or play quick, probing passes. We just aren’t seeing that so far. Whether it is a result of his own acclimatisation or Liverpool’s own style, Wirtz isn’t receiving the ball in space and thus is left playing safe passes or being stymied completely by a close marker.
Wirtz has played five completed passes into the penalty area in the league and has yet to register a goal or assist in eight games in all competitions. The breakout looks a way off yet.
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Two flaws in Nuno’s West Ham plan