Football365

They say misery loves company, and right now in this festive season of good cheer the Premier League is absolutely riddled with misery. In the same way you can throw a blanket over about 10 teams in the actual Premier League table, so too here in the all-important Mood Rankings.

We won’t bore you with the deeply scientific and immensely complicated formulae at work in carefully and methodically placing each team in the correct place – our own head would explode if we even began to have a clue what we were talking about – but suffice to say it is very scientific and very robust so if you think a team has been placed incorrectly you don’t need to worry: you’re just wrong.

October’s now equally wrong Mood Rankings can be found here if you want to peruse such a thing, with the rankings from that list in brackets below. Enjoy.

It’s just getting silly now, isn’t it? If there’s a theme developing among the clubs currently making shows of themselves, we might tentatively put forward that it’s the infuriating, mule-headed stubborn insistence on continuing to do stupid things stupidly while simultaneously dressing that up as a noble, steadfast adherence to founding principles in troubled times.

Nothing in Our League right now sends us more Proper Football Man than watching Southampton trying to play their way out of defence despite the overwhelming evidence that it’s just not working. And crucially, that it’s just not working at either end of the pitch. The justification for playing out from the back like you’re Manchester City is that the benefits outweigh the baked-in risk.

Even the teams that do it well make mistakes. And when those mistakes happen, it’s likely to be costly. The most Southampton performance of the season arguably in fact came from Manchester City against Tottenham.

But the argument is that playing out from the back through the opposition press allows you to create advantageous attacking situations and overloads by retaining possession and pulling opponents out of position. City more generally are the case in point here, while even Tottenham can at least point to their goal tally (if not much else) as justification here.

Southampton, as well as being comfortably the team most likely to just hand you a goal on a silver platter – the Saints are, absurdly, already into double-figures for errors leading to goals – are also the lowest scorers in the division. And even allowing for a lack of precision in the finishing only helps so much, with xG lifting them above Everton, Ipswich and Wolves but no more.

The Premier League appears to this season to be experimenting with a wild storyline where pretty much anyone can do a nonsense on pretty much anyone at any time. The exception thus far has been at the extremes – Liverpool and Southampton. Amusing, then, that the game between the two was actually enormously on brand for 24/25 in that it was an absolute ding-dong that Southampton really didn’t deserve to lose.

But they did. They nearly always do. Because of the errors. The frequent, identical, costly and unnecessary errors.

It really did pick up for a little while there, didn’t it? After a harrowing start to this season on the back of a harrowing end to last season and some deeply painful summer transfer business, Wolves and Gary O’Neil appeared to have found a corner to turn at least in a four-game run that brought their first two wins of the season and a couple of worthy draws.

Not many teams are going to saunter away from Craven Cottage with a 4-1 win under their belts, that’s for sure, and it seemed to set Wolves up nicely for a potentially season-defining period in the run-up to Christmas.

Which has all just proved once again that hope is a far, far, far bigger bastard than despair could ever be. It’s a cruel prick of a trickster, is hope.

It’s done Wolves right in. Since that four-game, eight-point run, things have gone – to use a technical term – entirely all the way to sh*t. Wolves have plenty about them as an attacking team, but it does little good if you keep shipping four goals in comical fashion. A home paddling off improving Bournemouth is one thing, but having your tummy tickled at Everton, the club where hope goes to die, is just mortifying for anyone.

Following that fiasco with another defeat at another club where giddiness is in gravely short supply in West Ham has propelled O’Neil right to the top of the Sack Race once more. The two remaining games before Christmas – Ipswich at home and Leicester away – appear uncomfortably vast and and the sixiest of six-pointers. It remains to be seen if the manager can last long enough to reach those games, never mind profit from them.

After that it’s Manchester United and Tottenham before the year is out, a silly pair of games at a silly time of year against a silly pair of clubs that absolutely scream New Manager Bounce.

The last week has gone about as well as could possibly have been hoped, which is why they’re a lofty 18th instead of last. Wolves were well beaten in what was perhaps the most six-pointery game of the season thus far before the Merseyside Derby was postponed.

Both those things could be more significant than might otherwise have been the case for Everton, and in both cases it’s because of the genuinely absurd fixture list they are currently contemplating. Even without the Liverpool game, it’s a December that still includes Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Nottingham Forest. January is only slightly better, with what on current form looks a nasty trip to Bournemouth followed by a classic FA Cup hiding-to-nothing banana skin against Peterborough before Aston Villa, Spurs and Brighton in the league.

That’s why they simply had to beat Wolves, and the manner of that win is a pretty significant bonus. And while there’s merit in the argument that Everton might not get another chance to go into the Merseyside Derby on the back of a 4-0 win with Liverpool on the back of a disappointing draw, it’s also true that when it’s now played it might also not sit in a run of horrible nightmarish games.

Although given nobody likes fixture congestion it does seem like the sensible thing to do would be for everyone to just shake hands and agree on the standard Goodison 0-0 rather than unnecessarily add any further burden to anyone’s workload. It’s certainly a better guess than this sh*t AI came up with.

Christ. Here we go. The main thing we want to address here is something we continue to hear quite a lot in the face of increasingly disastrous results. “It’s not dull, though, is it?!!? At least it’s exciting!!?!” Here’s the thing with that: it is dull and it isn’t exciting, and we’ll tell you for why.

Do you know what isn’t exciting? Predictability. And Spurs under Ange Postecoglou have turned predictable unpredictability into an absolute art form. They are entirely consistent in their inconsistency, and there is now something close to zero chance that what Postecoglou is attempting will bring any meaningful success in the medium to long term.

So it’s not exciting. It’s not exciting precisely because it cannot possibly lead anywhere. It was exciting in those early days of last season when the full flaws of “What we do, mate” were yet to be so brutally and frequently exposed. Back then it was just about possible to imagine we had miraculously found ourselves in the one universe of all the universes where Spurs actually do something.

But now we know this is not that universe, and in the complete absence of that potential what is there to get excited about, really? Sure, thrashing really good sides like Aston Villa and Manchester City is fun enough at the time, but ultimately there’s no point to those wins when they exist as they do in such absurd isolation.

After the City game, Spurs fans already knew exactly what was going to happen in the Fulham, Bournemouth and Chelsea games. And despite the gallows-humour lowness of those expectations, the team and manager have somehow contrived in those three games to fall beneath them.

The visit of Chelsea popped the bubble of delusion last season; this season it just hammered another nail in the coffin of Angeball. There were similarities between the two games – conceding four goals, conceding braindead penalties, losing both centre-backs for who knows how long – but with one big difference. This time it wasn’t a surprise.

Ultimately, Spurs are only really fun if you don’t actually support them. If you don’t support them then they are an absolute hoot. You literally cannot lose. Switch on a Spurs game and you’re either going to see them smash some other poor fools to pieces – while not ever having to worry about whether they might actually kick on and do something real as a result – or watch them step on rakes for 90 minutes. Either way, you’ve got a result.

Southampton away up next for these absolute clowns, and that’s absolutely perfect, isn’t it? On the face of it, there is literally no team better equipped to exploit Southampton’s own brand of witlessball than Spurs. We cannot think of a more ideal game for the neutral to enjoy given that the only two possible outcomes genuinely appear to be Spurs scoring about 723 goals or suffering their most pitiful defeat yet, and it’s something close to 50-50 as to which one you get. Brilliant. Unless you’re actually a Spurs fan.

Erik Ten Hag is gone and Ruben Amorim is in, so that’s definitely a mood-booster for sure. Charisma alone isn’t enough to make you a successful Manchester United manager, but if you lack it like Ten Hag then it really does make this uniquely challenging job that much harder.

We expect Amorim to be a very good United manager, and probably the best of the bad post-Fergie bunch, but it’s also very quickly become very clear that it is going to take significant patience and major buy-in from everyone for that to happen.

Simply, he doesn’t currently have the squad he needs to make his style of football really work, and it’s unlikely to be something that can be adequately solved in one January transfer window. It really is going to be well into next season before we can make any kind of assessment, and it’s immensely frustrating that United so needlessly and expensively wasted the summer and as a result probably this entire season.

Behind the scenes, the club remains a shambles. Sir Jim Ratcliffe would be a runaway winner of World’s Most Ridiculous Billionaire if we lived on anything approaching a sane timeline, but there’s no shame in finishing a distant second to Twitter’s sh*tposter-in-chief. The Dan Ashworth saga joins the Erik Ten Hag saga as a completely ridiculous and distracting sh*tshow that really should have been handled far better by a club where it was hoped the grown-ups were going to be in charge now.

In summary then: Off the field a shambles that has no prospect of improving while on the field a shambles that has some hope of improving. So that’s… something? At least?

Here’s the thing, okay? What if they are just now… not really any good? It makes you a bit dizzy just to think it, never mind type it. We still sort of assume that we’re all going to look like damn fools by April when City have won 15 games out of their last 16 and lead Liverpool and Arsenal by a point at the top of the table because it’s what they always do and specifically what they always do to the hopes and dreams of those two clubs in particular. But this year we just absolutely cannot see it.

This really is now an absolute nightmare run. It’s one win in 10 games across all competitions, which is just plain nutty, with seven – seven! – defeats thrown in. They hadn’t lost a game at all until that point.

And it’s not like the draws offer much encouragement, with a 3-0 Champions League lead spaffed away in 15 minutes and two comebacks required just to take a point from relegation-battling Crystal Palace.

The defeats are striking for their mundanity. Set aside for a moment the truly extraordinary 4-0 defeat to Spurs, a game in which City apparently decided for some reason to play not like Manchester City but like Southampton trying to play Manchester City, and the rest of the defeats they’ve suffered are just so… humdrum. So normal.

That’s really the worrying thing. The Tottenham defeat and the Feyenoord draw are wild outlier games stuffed with nonsense and silliness. Those are, while painful, in their own way easiest to ignore, to write off as ‘that’s football for you’. The other defeats – so ordinary, so deserved, so remarkably unremarkable in nature – are the ones that should terrify the champions.

Watch those games out of context and you just see a poor team playing poorly and losing to a better one. And it’s happening again and again and again. It’s fair to say City had been flying slightly by the seat of their pants before this run began and it did feel like a defeat was just around the corner. But not seven of them in six weeks. Not this. Nothing like this.

They have slipped from a title fight to a top-four battle and have – along with Real Madrid and PSG – contrived to somehow make the new Champions League group stage slightly interesting when it had been specifically and painstakingly devised to eradicate such frippery.

City are already out of top-eight contention, so at best it’s an awkward and undesirable two-leg play-off to squeeze into the schedule. And if they were to lose to PSG after the winter break they face the very real and very mortifying prospect of finding themselves outside Europe’s top 24 clubs.

Throw in Pep Guardiola admitting he absolutely would not have the energy to build something new at another club when building something new is precisely what is required at City right now and, yeah, it’s all really quite sh*t. And for once we’ve done a whole City update without having to even mention the Sword of Damocles charges hanging over them. Until just then, when we did mention it.

Michail Antonio’s horrific car crash puts everything else into perspective but while there’s no way to avoid mentioning something so genuinely real-world appalling you’ll have to excuse us for now sidelining it here a bit. We have to be able to pretend football actually matters when doing this stuff.

On the field, West Ham are a bit of a curate’s egg. They’re quite bad quite often and do appear to have made a misjudgement with Julen Lopetegui. It’s not quite a worst of both worlds scenario, but he just doesn’t represent a sufficiently significant change in style to make all the press-pack-upsetting hassle of ending David Moyes worth it. Lopetegui is a bit Spanish Moyes when you think about it.

You can’t really do the ‘Careful What You Wish For’ thing when West Ham fans aren’t really getting the thing they wished for. It’s not like they’re failing to deliver results while playing flowing eye-catching football. They’re just really not that different to Moyes’ Hammers. That wasn’t anybody’s plan for moving things forward.

And yet, they have scored a few very decent and/or important wins to keep the wolves from the door. Literally, on Monday.

The win at Newcastle was mighty impressive, while the Ten Hag-ending success against Manchester United was very, very funny which is just as good in its way. A 4-1 home win over Ipswich might not sound like much, but the only other team to do that sort of thing to Kieran McKenna’s side was a pre-blip Manchester City back in August.

The bad days are very bad, though, with thrashings off Chelsea and Arsenal one thing, but the fact they’re joined by heavy defeats against teams like Leicester and Forest and Tottenham far more damning.

West Ham fans won’t like to hear it, but dare we say it their results are really quite… Spursy.

Haven’t quite fully kicked on from the pain relief provided by Dr Tottenham, but their condition has definitely stabilised. The win at Ipswich was narrow but vital, while they are at least picking up points with some regularity via draws – including some notable ones against Newcastle and Man City.

Have opened up a bit of a gap now on the bottom three and really should have enough about them to ease clear of any serious trouble through this middle third of the season. But it does all still feel distinctly underwhelming after that stunning if deceptive finish to last season.

We already had a fairly clear idea that Michael Olise was really very good indeed but to watch Palace and indeed Bayern Munich this season is to realise that the Premier League at large perhaps didn’t appreciate just quite how good the man who made Palace tick really was.

Overall it’s a far healthier picture and outlook for Palace than when we last did this back in October, albeit with the growing realisation that this is almost certainly now going to end up as another season where Palace finish somewhere in the third quarter of the division with a points total in the 40s.

Really does look like there is now a genuine chance that a proud football club has entirely sold its soul for the Saudi coin in exchange for one briefly exciting but ultimately underwhelming Champions League campaign.

They are currently a mid-table team struggling and striving to break out of that group, and perhaps most worryingly don’t really look any better equipped than any of about half-a-dozen other teams to do so. They really do just look like a mid-table team under – yes, we are bravely and correctly going to say it – a mid-table manager.

The summer was a bungled mess on the incomings front which has left Eddie Howe desperately short in key areas.

The major positive was retaining all their big-ticket players – Alexander Isak, Anthony Gordon, Bruno Guimaraes – but even that is proving a double-edged sword. None of that top-tier trio is performing as they did last season and the prospect of departures looms.

Could Newcastle currently be trusted – or would they even be able – to replace any of those with players as good or better? The nagging concern for Newcastle currently isn’t just that they’re not really where they want to be or thought they’d be by now; it’s that if anything it looks likely to get worse before it gets better. And it might not ever get better.

There was already a sense of Newcastle’s dwindling status in Saudi Arabia’s collection of sportswashing trinkets even before they got themselves the 2034 World Cup. Newcastle risk now being forgotten altogether.

Tricky, this, because they’re doing broadly fine in lots and lots of ways. They’re competitive in almost every game they play, but it’s not quite translating into as many points as it needs to in games when they aren’t playing the division’s most actively stupid clubs.

It’s all very well taking the Dr Tottenham option – so very many clubs have done so over the years – but the idea behind it is that it gives you the kind of boost you can then take into games against teams that aren’t as confused as they are. Ipswich did manage to follow it up with a point against Manchester United, but nobody noticed that because they were all distracted by Ruben Amorim and, to a far greater and really quite embarrassing extent, Ed Sheeran.

Since then, it’s been three narrow and slightly pissy defeats in a row. The home defeat to Bournemouth, in a game Ipswich led from the 21st minute to the 87th, is a particular gut punch. A lot of their festive mood is likely to be determined by what happens at Wolves on Saturday, because the fixture computer has filled their stocking with lumps of coal after that: Newcastle, Arsenal, Chelsea are the games with which Ipswich round out what has certainly been an eventful 2024.

Can’t be too gloomy because nobody expected anything but a relegation battle and they certainly haven’t embarrassed themselves in it and it’s not wildly impossible to imagine a world where they turn some of the narrow defeats into draws and some of the draws into wins and climb pretty quickly. But a lot of opportunities have already been spurned.

No team has spurned more points from winning positions. That’s never good for your mood.

From the outside looking in, the decision to bin Steve Cooper seemed an odd one but the reaction of the fans told you it wasn’t working out despite Leicester competing perfectly adequately in the lower reaches of the table.

As ever, we’d always like to see a bit of introspection from the big bosses when they sack a manager in this kind of scenario. You appointed him in the summer. He delivered results that cannot have been hugely surprising/disappointing to you, and yet it was all irretrievably broken within four months. Bin Cooper off by all means, but hard to see how the manager can really be the only or even biggest villain in that picture.

Anyway, they appear to have lucked out with Ruud van Nistelrooy who has certainly made an eye-catching start with four points from two games against West Ham and Brighton. Doesn’t take much of a new-manager bounce to trampoline a fair way up the table this season and Leicester have duly done so. The gap to the bottom three is now five points and there is now for the first time a slight sense of three becoming detached at the bottom which is always a bit of a boost for all those in the immediate vicinity on the other side of that line.

What happens when the Ruud honeymoon period comes to an end will be key, and it would certainly appear prudent for the Foxes to extend that buffer over the bottom three before Christmas if they possibly can. There do seem to be an awful lot of six-pointers involving Wolves at the moment, and their visit to Leicester the weekend before Christmas looms larger than most for both teams.

In Leicester’s case because it’s followed by a ticklish 10-day Christmas-New Year run that features Liverpool, Man City and Aston Villa.

An irritating stall at an inopportune time has slightly sucked the momentum from Brighton’s fine start to the season. The worry among Seagulls fans must be that they did much the same thing last year as the second half of the season became a directionless drift to the finish line. It would be a shame for history to repeat itself there given where they found themselves only a few weeks ago after a win at Bournemouth that looks more impressive by the day given the Cherries’ own recent efforts.

It’s not like it’s doom and gloom. Nothing is f***ed. They’re still seventh and only three points off the top four and one off the top five (which could be enough for the Champions League). But taking only two points from a three-game run against Southampton, Fulham and Leicester is undeniably disappointing given a win in the first of those games at home against the worst team in the division would have lifted them to second.

There are further decent-looking games on paper to come as well, with Palace, West Ham and Brentford (crucially, of course, at home to Brentford) before a trip to Villa rounds out a rollercoaster 2024 for a club that now measures missed opportunities by such things as ‘not climbing to second’. It’s still all quite good, isn’t it?

We have so much time for Fulham and Marco Silva. They are the Premier League’s most determinedly mid-table team – even in the current volatility between fifth and 14th in the Premier League they’ve managed to land in tenth as the Mood music stops – and there is absolutely no shame in that.

Especially as Fulham always make it fun. There is arguably no other mid-table team over the last few years that more cheerfully embodies the ‘anybody can beat anybody’ ethos than Fulham. That, of course, also means anybody can lose to anybody too, something Fulham have chipped in with this year by getting thrashed at home by Wolves and even more damningly losing to both the Manchester clubs.

Fulham’s last three home games have been a hard-fought draw against Arsenal, a fine win over Brighton and that humbling by Wolves. And really you do have to say that’s absolutely spot on. That is absolutely tip-top Fulhaming, it really is.

And there is scope for some truly extreme Christmas mischief if they fancy it, given their next three games involve trips to the top two and a home game against the bottom one. Come on, Cottagers, you know what to do.

We’ll not worry ourselves with that nightmarish away form, because frankly who cares about that when some bizarre alchemy has turned you, humble little Brentford, into the most exciting and watchable home team in all of football.

The numbers are now so far beyond the absurd. For starters, 22 points from eight games is ridiculous. But that really is only for starters. The Bees have scored at least six goals more than any other team has managed on their own ground this season, while only five teams in the division have scored more goals all in than Brentford’s 26 just at home.

Chuck in the fact that Brentford also somehow have the fourth-worst home defensive record despite everything and you’ve got magnificently enjoyable weapons-grade nonsense. There have been 40 goals in eight games at the Gtech this season, nine more than at any other ground.

It’s reached the stage where Brentford 1-1 West Ham – about the least remarkable football result of which it is possible to conceive – is the one that stands out. Because since that inexplicably ordinary game, Brentford’s home league games have ended 5-3, 4-3, 3-2, 4-1 and 4-2 and you have to say that’s magnificent.

And if anything the fact they’ve completely and utterly sacrificed their away form entirely in order to focus on delivering the greatest home season in Barclays history only makes us love them more.

Fair to say Villa were in need of the fixture computer’s kindness in this season of goodwill by handing them back-to-back Premier League home games to start December against the away version of Brentford and any version of Southampton. There are quite literally no easier tasks than those two, and Villa duly did the necessary with a pair of wins to silence some of the growing concerns after the entire month of November passed without a win in any competition.

They’ve now rolled those confidence-boosting wins into a genuinely impressive Champions League success at RB Leipzig which pretty much nailed down a play-off spot at the very, very least while also making the top eight a genuinely achievable new year’s resolution.

So the mood is a lot better than it was a few weeks ago, but the inevitable flipside of a kind run of games is the bum’s rush on the other side of it. If Villa’s mood is still on the up after December’s remaining games against Forest, Man City, Newcastle and Brighton then all will truly be well once more at a club that has enjoyed an astonishing resurgence in the last couple of years and now come out the other side of the first major stress test.

Yes, this is all starting to go very nicely indeed, isn’t it? We’re big fans of Andoni Iraola, who it turns out probably actually is a better football manager than Gary O’Neil. If there’s a fly in the Bournemouth ointment currently then it’s surely the nagging yet growing concern that the more attention he draws to himself with these eye-catching results then the greater the chance that one of the bigger beasts comes knocking. There are certainly Spurs fans casting admiring glances after the way his side so expertly dismantled Postecoglou’s.

That was also their third and least impressive home win over Big Six opposition in the last couple of months on the back of success against both Arsenal and Manchester City. The Cherries have lifted themselves right up towards the top of that giant mid-table morass from fifth to about 14th and don’t have the worst festive fixture list either. Could easily be top six by the new year at present speed and course, which is all tremendously exciting for a club proving that you absolutely don’t always have to be careful what you wish for as long as you can avoid being West Ham.

That was a nasty little blip they had in late October and early November, but they’re very much out the other side of that now and starting to look far more like their normal selves. The return to full form and fitness of Martin Odegaard clearly a big factor there, but there have also been significant upticks in form from assorted other key Arsenal components.

The Champions League campaign has gone fine, with the Gunners well placed for the top eight and absolute certainties for the top 24. That last bit should be a given, of course, but tell that to Real Madrid, Man City or PSG.

With everything looking pretty much back on track, Arsenal do now have a huge opportunity during the winter Champions League break to make significant strides across three domestic competitions where the fixtures do not appear too daunting.

While the festive fixtures can always throw up rogue results – and ultimately scuppered Arsenal last year – there really is no excuse for making any kind of mess in the Everton, Palace, Ipswich run they’ve got coming up. There’s also a Carabao clash with Palace which again you’d expect Arsenal to negotiate.

They really could and should hit the new year in high spirits, to the extent that while it may be sacrilegious to say it, we can even see them emerging from a trip to Brentford without losing 4-3 or something. That’s how good we think Arsenal are right now.

Going all right, isn’t it? Forest really are starting to look more and more sustainable on their current trajectory. After the briefest of identity crises in the second half of a 3-1 defeat to Newcastle, they now seem right back on track.

They’ve got all manner of clever and fun players around the place, a gifted conductor in Morgan Gibbs-White and the Kiwi Haaland banging in goals up front.

There remains an expectation that a reversion to the mean is inevitably around an upcoming corner, but there are encouraging reasons to think that might not be a certainty.

Forest have emerged from a tough run of games still in decent shape, and already dodged a couple of moments that could easily have marked the start of that fall back into the mid-table sludge.

That defeat to Newcastle being followed unsurprisingly by a reverse at Arsenal could have been The Moment, but they did the necessary against Ipswich. A heavy defeat at Man City is more embarrassing at this time than at any other in about 15 years, but Forest recovered from that to give Man United a beating.

It says a lot about how this season is going for all the clubs involved that Forest’s run between now and Boxing Day contains games against Villa and Spurs that you would fully expect them to win and a trip to Brentford where they will, like everyone else, be obliged to lose 4-2 or some such daftness.

Hands up everyone who expected Chelsea to be above Manchester City in both the league table and title betting by mid-December… put them back down, you massive liars.

We thought Chelsea would be better this season even after what at the time looked like a very weird and unnecessary managerial downgrade, but when we said ‘better’ we meant ‘genuine top-four contenders’ not ‘genuine title contenders’. There is even a case to be made now that Chelsea rather than Arsenal represent runaway leaders Liverpool’s biggest threat this season. Just read that sentence back and imagine it making any sense at all in August, by the way.

Chelsea are the best attacking team in the country right now, outscoring their two main title rivals by six goals apiece. So good are they going forward that they can go to Spurs and quite literally gift them a two-goal start before easing to a victory that never really felt in any doubt from the moment they pulled a goal back.

Idle thoughts of Cole Palmer being a one-season wonder are already dust; he’s kicked on magnificently and is now perhaps the Premier League’s most compelling all-round player. The other big signings Chelsea made a year ago all seem far better for the run and are settling into their work marvellously. It is undeniably a bit depressing for everyone else that Chelsea can succeed despite being a complete basket-case, that eventually ‘signing loads and loads of really good footballers for loads of money’ will deliver on-field success no matter how stupid you are, but for Chelsea that only makes it even more fun.

It would already constitute a major shock if they don’t at the very, very least win the Europa Conference this year. It’s a minor trinket in the grand scheme of course, but would allow Chelsea to become the first club to have all four proper UEFA trophies in their collection: Champions League/European Cup, Europa League/UEFA Cup, Cup Winners’ Cup, Conference.

We suppose 19 wins and two draws out of 22 games is quite good, if you like that sort of thing. They win when they play well, they win when they play so badly that Arne Slot has no choice but to angrily fume about it afterwards. They win because they have the best goalkeeper in the world, they win without the best goalkeeper in the world.

Mo Salah’s contract grumbles might be slightly harshing the buzz, but even that looks like it might get sorted soon. And it’s not exactly hurting things on the pitch where he is, if anything, playing even better than he ever has for Liverpool.

Four points clear in the Premier League with a game in hand – albeit that game is at Goodison and therefore by ancient Barclays law is required to end in a 0-0 draw, so call it five points clear – and absolutely flying through the Champions League.

Even in a format specifically designed to eliminate stress and tension, Liverpool’s passage through it has been ludicrously serene. They sit flawlessly top of the pile and six points clear of ninth place with two games to go, meaning they can already stop worrying about having to squeeze a play-off round into the schedule next year.

Liverpool have more Champions League points this season than Real Madrid and Man City combined, which we can surely all agree is quite funny, while you can create a similar effect in the Premier League by combining Manchester United and Everton’s points tallies, which still trails in two behind Liverpool’s 35.

It’s going quite well, is what we’re saying here.

Man Utd forward Marcus Rashford has been branded “a baby” and an “embarrassment” by Troy Deeney after his performance against Arsenal last week.

The England international looks a shadow of the player who scored 30 goals in the 2022/23 campaign with Rashford managing just eight goals last term.

Despite his poor performances this term, Rashford is currently Man Utd’s top goalscorer in the Premier League this season with four goals.

Rashford and Joshua Zirkzee sparked into life against Everton in a 4-0 win in Ruben Amorim’s first Premier League home match as manager on December 1.

However, since then the Man Utd forward has been limited to half an hour off the bench in defeats to Arsenal and Nottingham Forest as the Red Devils dropped down to 13th in the Premier League table.

Reports emerged earlier this week linking Rashford to a January exit if Man Utd receive a ‘top offer’ with the Daily Mail revealing today that the Red Devils want £40m for their academy product.

When asked what he thought had gone wrong for Rashford at Man Utd, Deeney told talkSPORT: “Without being nasty I think he’s developed a level of superstar which, because Man United have been so bad over recent years, he’s benefited from that.

“From contracts and playing, especially at the start of the season. He was playing and he was awful.

“But he kept playing, and they would take off [Alejandro] Garnacho, take off [Amad] Diallo, whoever it was.

“I just think he’s developed a level of superstar-ness when he probably hasn’t earned it, if I’m being totally honest with you.”

MORE MAN UTD COVERAGE ON F365…

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👉 Ranking Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Man Utd mistakes: 1) Dan Ashworth, 7) Busby Babes, 13) Being a Grinch

When asked if Rashford had become lazy because of the long and lucrative contract he’s on, Deeney replied: “I don’t think it’s about whether he can become lazy.

“It’s what you’re allowing him to get away with. And I think, I said this a couple of weeks ago when the new manager came in, I think Marcus will struggle because of the standard that’s expected.

“And then obviously he scored back-to-back games and against Arsenal he dropped him.”

Rashford was criticised for his performance against Arsenal in a 2-0 loss with Roy Keane insisting the Man Utd forward’s “general play as a footballer is shocking”.

The 27-year-old was also seen walking off the pitch before any of his other team-mates, who went to clap the fans, and Deeney reckons his attitude at Arsenal sums up why it hasn’t been working out for him recently.

Deeney added: “I was at the Arsenal game. When he came on, there was no point bringing him on. It was an embarrassment when he came on.

“Walking around, tried to hit a massive dive, kicked it off the pitch, and then when all the players went over to the fans to clap, he was stood at the back, he was first one off, and I just thought, you’re a baby.

“You’re a baby. What is he, 27 now? Meant to be at the peak of your powers. Obviously the financials are taken care of now. Who are you as a person? What do you stand for?

“And my worry, genuine worry for Marcus is, when this is all said and done, that he’s going to regret not maximising it because that’s hard to live with.

“You know, for me personally, I had an okay career, I did really good. But from where I’m from, to where I got to, it’s, I’m good with that.

“I squeezed every part of the orange, do you get what I mean?”

On whether people around him are damaging Rashford, Deeney continued: “No, ultimately it all falls on him. And I’m just disappointed, because I think he could have been a world-beater. I genuinely do.

“I think he could have been someone that played for England on a regular basis. He could have scored loads of goals. He could have been an absolute shining star for Man United for many years and go down as a club legend.

“And I think what’s going to happen is he’s going to tarnish that, and he’s going to ultimately end up like someone like Jesse Lingard. That was like, what if? What if he had, you know, applied himself?

“I think he’s lost interest with media as well.”

When asked where the Man Utd forward could end up moving to, Deeney said: “Nastily, he would probably suit Spurs, because there is no expectation on Spurs.

“The players that go there, they’re not expected to win the league, are they?”

Tottenham Hotspur’s former head of medicine and sports science has explained why Ruben Amorim’s appointment could have “worsened” Luke Shaw’s injury.

When the 29-year-old is fully fit, he is capable of being one of the best left-backs in the Premier League. Unfortunately, injuries have impacted him in recent seasons.

After the England international only made 12 Premier League appearances for Man Utd last season, he returned to fitness and featured for Gareth Southgate’s side towards the end of Euro 2024.

After the tournament, Shaw was dealt another injury blow as a calf injury saw him miss the start of the 2024/25 campaign.

Shaw made a return last month and made three substitute appearances in the Premier League and Europa League, but he’s “devastated” after suffering a “small setback”.

It remains to be seen how long Shaw will be out and Spurs’ ex-head of medicine and sports science – Geoff Scott – has revealed a couple of reasons why Amorim’s arrival last month could have contributed to “worsening” the defender’s injury.

“The ‘new manager effect is often associated with a positive bounce in results. However, it can also have a negative effect on injuries,” Scott told The Athletic.

READ: Man Utd and Man City miserably side by side in Premier League mood rankings

“This happens because players may be asked to adopt a new style and pace of play which places different physical demands on their bodies and there can be a knock-on effect until they adapt.

“Another reason for worsening injuries is that new managers are frequently appointed in response to a dip in results; so a replacement in the dugout is a fresh start, with a heightened desire to improve performances and to work even harder than before for the new coach.

“Professional footballers are very well conditioned but, as they are constantly working near the maximum of their physiological capacity, it doesn’t take much extra to push them into dangerous training zones. This period needs to be planned well and progressively increased.”

MORE MAN UTD COVERAGE ON F365…

👉 Fresh Man Utd exit details over ‘tentative’ Ashworth emerge as ‘brawler’ sale is slammed

👉 Marcus Rashford tempting for Arsenal as Jadon Sancho proves Man Utd are the problem

👉 Man Utd NOT ‘writing off’ £80m despite Ruben Amorim ‘progress off the pitch’

Scott is also keen to point out that Shaw’s injury occurring shortly after Amorim’s arrival is “an unlucky coincidence”.

“The timing of Shaw’s latest injury, days after the arrival of Ruben Amorim as head coach, is an unlucky coincidence,” Scott added.

“But it is recognised that a change in training and playing style has a significant impact on injuries in the first few weeks and months.

“This is why it is so crucial for the new manager and his new coaching team to work with the medical and performance department to effectively manage players’ workload and ensure they are rotated during busy match schedules to optimise their performance.

“Failure to do so could put their players at risk — particularly of muscle and soft-tissue injuries.”

Ange Postecoglou says Cristian Romero is a “human being” after the Tottenham centre-back appeared to point the finger of blame at Daniel Levy for the club’s struggles.

Romero was forced off injured as Tottenham gave up a two-goal lead to lose 4-3 to Chelsea on Sunday; a defeat which leaves them 11th in the Premier League having lost seven of their 15 games so far this season.

Postecoglou has come under significant pressure as a result and is currently third in the sack race, but after the loss to the Blues Romero made it clear he didn’t think his manager was to blame.

Asked if Tottenham were suffering over limited spending and a lack of depth, the centre back told Telemundo Deportes: “The truth is, I would say no comment, but…

“Manchester City competes every year, you see how Liverpool strengthens its squad, Chelsea strengthens their squad, doesn’t do well, strengthens again, and now they’re seeing results. Those are the things to imitate.

“You have to realise that something is going wrong, hopefully, they realise it.

“The last few years, it’s always the same: first, the players, then the coaching staff changes, and it’s always the same people responsible.

“Hopefully, they realise who the true responsible ones are, and we move forward because it’s a beautiful club that, with the structure it has, could easily be competing for the title every year.”

Since Postecoglou’s arrival in July 2023, Spurs have spent around £350million but have failed to push for trophies having claimed just one gong – the League Cup in 2008 – since Levy became a member of the board in 2000.

Romero backed Postecoglou after Sunday’s loss, saying: “He’s a great coach. We saw it in the first season. In this second one we’ve suffered a lot of injuries.

“Players are the first one to be criticised, then if we lose 10 games, the staff can be changed, but nobody talks about what is actually happening.

“We are very happy with this staff, me and my colleagues. We love how they work and the football they try to play. We’ll try to move on quickly.”

MORE TOTTENHAM COVERAGE ON F365

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👉 Spurs are exciting?! Make that ‘exhausting’ if you are a fan under Postecoglou

👉 Postecoglou sack? Who would want to join Spurs ‘circus’ mid-season?

Postecoglou says Romero was in an “emotional” state after the defeat to Chelsea and revealed that the defender “apologised” of airing his dirty laundry in public.

The Spurs boss said: “In the context of the day, Cristian was really disappointed obviously. More than disappointed in that he’d worked hard to get back, it was a big game for obviously, he knew that, and he had to go off and then watch the team have to feel the pain of another defeat in the manner it happened. He was obviously very emotional. He’s a leader in the club, he hasn’t been able to help us, I think it was his way of trying to as a leader help us in the group.

“We’re going through a tough time and he believes in what we’re doing. And then the other part of it probably he went about it the wrong way. He’s passionate about having success at the club and the way he expressed it was not the right way in a public sense. I don’t feel and it’s certainly not my belief that our challenges at the moment are down to one thing or one person, I don’t believe that, I never have believed that.

“Whatever we need to do, we have the power to do that but it’ll only happen if we stay united as a group particularly through difficult times, get through to the other side. I fully believe if you can do that, you come out stronger. Cristian realises what he said…a lot of what he said was good, some wasn’t right and shouldn’t have been done in public. We deal with these things in our own four walls. There’s always issues we need to deal with. The same way I wouldn’t criticise a player or anyone else, we shouldn’t be doing that in a public sense.

“I’ve already spoken to Christian about it and and you know, he’s apologised for the fact that the way he said it, particularly in the public sense, wasn’t the right way to go about things. He’s a human being, he got emotional and I think he just expressed what he wanted to express, probably in the wrong way.

“He does care. I think it would have been easy for him not to say anything. He does care, but there’s a way to do these things and a way to express yourself and the way he did it wasn’t the right way.”

Spurs. They’re not very good, are they? Keep losing in silly fashion, don’t they?

They have also been doing that for really quite a very long time. That’s not a new point, but we do keep seeing people saying it’s important not to make kneejerk judgements on Ange Postecoglou and his methods. We’re not sure precisely how long a knee must take to make its move before it loses jerkiness, but we’re confident that ‘more than a year’ fits the bill.

Let’s run those numbers again, shall we? Spurs have 20 points from 15 Premier League games this season, in which they’ve lost more often than they’ve won. Which is, you know, bad. But go back into last season as well and it soon gets even worse. It’s 26 points from their last 22 games. In 2024 as a whole it’s 47 from 33, with 14 wins to go with 14 defeats.

In all, since that laughably false 10-game dawn at the start of last season, Postecoglou’s Tottenham have managed 60 points from 43 Premier League games. That form would equate to 53 points from a 38-game season – at least six fewer than Spurs have managed in any Premier League season since 2008/09.

It’s still absolutely fine to be one of the Postecoglou diehards who still believes in the potential for it all to come together. Lord knows the glimpses we get of it working are magnificent. And the argument that the last thing Spurs need is another restart, another reboot, another return to square one with a new manager who at this point is unlikely to be a significant upgrade anyway while the deeper issues at the club go unaddressed is an absolutely solid one.

But it’s also not exactly baseless or a rush to judgement to have concluded this isn’t really working and the overwhelming likelihood is that it never really will.

Which brings us to the main point we wish to address, and something we hear a lot in the face of the increasingly disastrous results. “It’s not dull, though, is it?!!? At least it’s exciting!!?!” Here’s the thing with that: it is dull and it isn’t exciting, and we’ll tell you for why.

Do you know what isn’t exciting? Predictability. And Spurs under Postecoglou have turned predictable unpredictability into an absolute art form. They are entirely consistent in their inconsistency, and we hold vanishingly little hope that what Postecoglou is attempting will bring any meaningful success in the medium to long term.

So it’s not exciting. It’s not exciting precisely because it doesn’t appear to be leading anywhere at all. It was exciting in those early days of last season when the full flaws of “What we do, mate” were yet to be so brutally and frequently exposed. Back then it was just about possible to imagine we had miraculously found ourselves in the one universe of all the universes where Spurs actually do something.

But now we know with almost total certainty this is not that universe, and in the absence of that potential what is there to get excited about, really? Sure, thrashing really good sides like Aston Villa and Manchester City is fun enough at the time, but ultimately there’s no point to those wins when they exist as they do in such absurd isolation.

After the City game, Spurs fans already knew exactly what to expect in the Fulham, Bournemouth and Chelsea games. And despite the bleak gallows-humour lowness of those expectations, the team and manager have somehow contrived in those three games to fall beneath them.

READ: 16 Conclusions on Spurs 3-4 Chelsea: Postecoglou sack, Sancho, Bissouma, Cucurella and the title

It was the visit of Chelsea last season that exposed the first cracks in the armour; this season it just hammered another probably unnecessary nail in Angeball’s already very securely nailed coffin. There were similarities between the two games – conceding four goals, conceding braindead penalties, losing both centre-backs for who knows how long – but with one big difference. This time it wasn’t remotely a surprise.

Ultimately, Spurs are only really fun for everyone else. If you support them it’s exhausting, a perfect blend of a club big enough to be the butt of everyone’s jokes and stupid enough to ensure it. If you don’t support them then they are an absolute hoot. You literally cannot lose. Switch on a Spurs game and you’re either going to see them smash some other poor fools to pieces – while not ever having to worry in the about whether they might actually kick on and do something real as a result of it – or watch them step on rakes for 90 minutes. Either way, you’ve got a result.

Southampton away up next for these absolute clowns, and that’s absolutely perfect, isn’t it? On the face of it, there is literally no team better equipped to exploit Southampton’s own brand of witlessball than Spurs.

We cannot think of a more ideal game in all of association football for the neutral to enjoy given that the only two possible outcomes genuinely appear to be Spurs scoring about 723 goals or suffering their most pitiful defeat yet, and it’s something close to 50-50 as to which one you get. Brilliant. Unless you’re actually a Spurs fan.

Sacking Ange Postecoglou makes no sense for Spurs mid-season, while we have stout defences of Manchester United.

Send your views to theeditor@football365.com

Why sack Ange in his second season?

The clamour for getting rid of Ange is increasing, but for many Spurs fans, in fact all the ones I know, the general consensus is “why bin him off now”?

It’s not news to anyone that Spurs sack managers around this time of year. Levy has form here. But what is the benefit of getting rid of Ange now? Who, really, would want to come to this circus who’s going to be a genuine upgrade?

Let the bloke see out the season; the club won’t get relegated, and finishing top four is becoming ever more unlikely. That said, we still have three chances of an Ange Second Season Trophy, and a group of players who, a few aside, are good at kicking a ball around. A young coach, tactically flexible and with a history of blooding youth players might well want to join come the summer.

I have my eye on McKenna at Ipswich. Seems to be grounded in the reality of Ipswich’s position in the Premier League unlike say, Russell Martin, and is acting accordingly, that is to say he plays the opposition as opposed to says ’this is who we are’, and is admired by the players he coaches (and coaching players to improvement is something I can’t say I see much of from Postecoglou).

But we can’t go around sacking coach after coach….after coach when we know the real issue is the bloke who keeps employing them.

Dan Mallerman

Man Utd optimism barring Bruno

Sweet Christ, Rami in with his latest wild hot take.

Yeah, we lost, with a corner again and two other poor goals conceded while we scored two decent enough ones. And let’s not forget, this Forest team has been flying. We’ve just changed manager. All new formation, players not all suited etc

Also, fairly critically, only 8 points back from 4th. Can we overcome that? Maybe, although I wouldn’t bank on it considering the teams in the top 4. But 6 from European places? Yes, that’s achievable. All the teams there have a good wobble in them.

Next, Ashworth hasn’t “walked away”; he’s been sent packing. Literally marched out of the front door. Bear in mind, he’s been here for 5 months, left Newcastle under a cloud and was leading the charge for us to sign Southgate in the summer. Certainly sounds like he didn’t align with the vision and won’t be missed, much less lamented. That last was a near sackable offence in itself!

Now, on to the players. There’s a solid core there but with some critical gaps (although not left back; we don’t play full backs in this formation…). We already knew this. Some players have been given the chance and failed. Others are being worked on. Others are waiting for their chance (i.e. not a match against 3 of the top 5). Still others are plugging a gap until the right option is there (*cough* Dalot *cough*). Some have surprised people. Talking players connecting, Rashford and Hojlund are often on the same wavelength and Amad is the key player for both but needs to be eased. We don’t need him or Mainoo crocked.

One thing that is definitely needed is someone else taking set pieces. Bruno is not and never has been it. So so many wasted opportunities as a result of a vague ball, if it even makes it past the first man. De Ligt is more than capable in the air, and obviously the slab is too. Hopefully Yoro as well.

But the biggest issue is not conceding from them. We lampoon thin-skinned Arsenal fans for being haters turned lovers of the corner routine, but it’s always been an important part of the game, and was for all of Sir Alex’s reign of terror. How many vital free kicks and corners from Beckham in 99 alone? If you can’t offer a threat at them, teams will be happy to give up free kicks and corners.

Again, Bruno is not that man. He’s also not good in the heart of midfield, he’s wasteful in possession, takes too many shots that have no chance and has an allergy to passing to strikers. However the biggest problem is that Mount is also not taking the chance to replace him. Nor is Garnacho. If we do pick up Angel Gomes and Edwards, or Mainoo moves forwards, then that could be an answer but right now he just needs to step down from set piece duty as without him at all we’re somehow worse.

I said before, we just need to get through these three games and see how things look. We had Arsenal neutralised until they started exploiting their corner routine. We shouldn’t have lost against Forest, and wouldn’t but for two bad mistakes (lovely swerve on that shot in terrible weather though – can we do a swap with Bruno?).

One thing is for sure though, the performances aren’t all bad. There’s good to build on, there’s issues to fix. The rest of December can set things right. I’m confident it will.

Badwolf

MORE MAN UTD COVERAGE ON F365…

👉 Ferdinand demands Man Utd sell their ‘s**t’ players in ‘brutal’ rant: ‘Get them the f**k out’

👉 Amorim wants Man Utd to get rid of £350k-a-week duo in January transfer budget ‘boost’

👉 Man Utd ‘nepo baby’ is ‘going around acting the big shot’ and Brailsford’s ‘bag man’

…Same old catastrophising on the United squad from the usual suspects. Many seem to understand or at least profess to understand that a new coach needs time to bring about changes with the team. Yet, as soon as a few results go awry the toys fly out the pram and we’re back to the drama, the crisis, and binning off 90% of the squad. I’m sat here just enjoying watching my team have a plan and some semblance of identity.

I’m sure improvements can be made in certain areas but it really isn’t that bad. This squad, when coached well, is certainly capable of challenging for 4th in the league. Amorim won’t have the opportunity to make that happen this season but 5th – 7th is well within reach. You have to give the guy time to coach his way. There’s already been signs of significant improvement and as that progresses your opinion of these supposedly useless players will change.

If we look at the squad reasonably then there is maybe one or two positions that need immediate attention with the rest to develop over time like every other team.

GK: Onana / Bayindir – good, no change

RCB: Yoro / Mazraoui – good, no change

CCB: Maguire / De Ligt – good, no change

LCB: Martinez / Shaw – this is a problem area especially as Martinez looks to be struggling with the amount of space he must cover. No immediate need but probably look to buy a starter in the summer.

RWB: Amad / Dalot – good, no change

LWB: Malacia / ??? – this is the major concern and needs rectifying in the January window.

CM: Ugarte / Mainoo / Casemiro / Eriksen – good starters bad backup. Kobbie is still very young so getting another similar player would probably help lighten his load plus a true DM as backup for Ugarte is required.

AM: Bruno / Garnacho / Rashford / Mount – ok for now but long term bringing in an elite no10 type player will be needed to really get the most from this system.

ST: Holjund / Zirkzee – the Dane looks good in this setup and back up will do in the short term. Looking at either an elite starter or veteran backup seems likely in the summer.

If we’re talking winning titles and reaching UCL finals then obviously more needs doing but that’s not where the team is at. The immediate goal is Champions League qualification and this is achievable with only minor changes and some more coaching.

Dave, Manchester (if Ashworth wasn’t working out seems smart to get rid quick, waste of money but it’s a below the fold story for any other club)

…I have to laugh/scroll-past people who make claims such as the whole squad needs a clear out, they’re all shit. Man Utd players are not shit just because of where they are in the table. Presumably the whole City squad are worthless now given their current run by the same logic?

If you look at the squad value in the premier league from transfermkt, Utd sit 5th behind (in order) City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool. (Premier League 24/25 | Transfermarkt)

On that valuation, 5th is a reasonable expectation of where they should be in the table with a few places above or below called over/under achieving. This tells me exactly what my eyes also tell me whenever I watch utd against whoever they are playing – Utd have the quality to be higher in the table but they are playing a lot worse than the sum of their parts – for years they have had no playing style, that is not going to be fixed overnight and a few shiny new players is not the answer either (although it is what the club have tried to do every year).

Amorin is using matches as his training and may well be rotating players more than he should but I’m backing him to turn things around and we’ll have much more of an idea after he’s got 15-20 games at utd under his belt. But don’t let that spoil a great opportunity for stupid knee-jerkery…

Also, if you look much further down the value table you see Bournemouth, Brentford and Fulham, squads valued at less than half of Utds, and are currently above Utd in the table. That is testament to how the circus at Old Trafford has been functioning. Rome wasn’t built in a day and the circus won’t be dismantled in a day either (although travelling circuses seem to do a good job of that – maybe Utd should get a new sporting director with an actual circus background…)

So please, laugh at us for a myriad of reasons but the quality of the squad does not excuse the league standing.

Jon, Cape Town

You can have Dalot

Neil, thanks so much for bringing some joy in these times of woe.

As a Utd ST holder I’ll happily drive him to Villa Park myself…I’ll even cover the fuel and rent till he finds somewhere to live. I guarantee after multiple high fives to team mates after his mistakes you will be regretting the no caveats

To paraphrase Joey Tribbiani ‘I’d happily rip off my arm just so i have something to throw at him’.

Red Red Robin

Man Utd are meme-tastic

Aside from the obvious why sign a DoF if you are only going to buy players to fit the manager, shouldn’t there be an overarching game plan in the first place?

I wondered as Van Nistelrooy got some decent results out of United during his interim spell – and getting a bit of a tune out of Leicester – whether a) he stole Amorim’s new manager bounce and b) whether they should have kept him on for the remainder of the year.

Of course, getting in a manager who simply gets something out of the current squad without a longer term goal isn’t the best long term plan. After all, that’s what happened with Ole. While it’s not clear if Van Nistelrooy has a philosophy or not.

The whole Ashworth saga does make a mockery out of the whole INEOS being clever sport managers. It’s one thing to show a certain business ruthlessness in making quick, tough decisions but the hypocrisy of the sheer waste of contract payouts compared to the money saving firing of low paid staff is stunning.

At first I thought Amorim’s statement of United ‘being a big club but not a big team’ was quite savvy – and then the Ashworth firing dropped. Makes one wonder how you measure ‘big club’ these days. Must be purely in memes.

Paul McDevitt

MORE MAN UTD COVERAGE ON F365…

👉 Ferdinand demands Man Utd sell their ‘s**t’ players in ‘brutal’ rant: ‘Get them the f**k out’

👉 Amorim wants Man Utd to get rid of £350k-a-week duo in January transfer budget ‘boost’

👉 Man Utd ‘nepo baby’ is ‘going around acting the big shot’ and Brailsford’s ‘bag man’

Chelsea might just have a plan

Is Chelsea’s current PL squad worth more than they paid for it? Probably yes.

Do Chelsea need to add many players over the next 5 years to keep progressing? Probably not.

What are the 5 biggest overspends in the current squad: Fofana, Cucu, Enzo, Mudryk, Disasi (cost €380m) currently worth? About €250m = Minus €130m

What are the 5 best value signings: Palmer, Sancho, Jackson, Tosin, Madueke (cost €150m) currently worth? About €400m = plus €250m.

What do Clearlake have to show for their crazy first year of spending? 5 or 6 current first team players.

Looks like those chimps down the bridge aint doing so badly after all!!

Ben Teacher

What about FFP?

With Chelsea playing so well I have one question to ask… when do they get their points deduction? Is it due this season or does it not start until after the City one finishes when hell freezes over? Is it like games in hand, where you have a points deduction in hand?

With tax exile Sir Jim, in between asking for taxpayers to fix his stadium, has got rid of concession tickets for the express purpose of giving pensioners’ money to millionaire footballers is it time to say bollocks to FFP? Its clearly not working.

Alex, South London

The Gravenberch turn

Responding to Mike, LFC, Dubai’s ask about worst takes in the mailbox we’ve come to regret… my regrettable entry is a view Mike himself might share: I said last year Bayern Munich fleeced us for Ryan Gravenberch, that he was a useless footballer incapable of graft, and that he was of the lowest technical ability. Hmm, I was a bit (more than a bit) misguided there.

Gravenberch is one of the first names on the team sheet and one of my favorite players to watch. My complete 180 on Gravenberch has actually given me a lot of pause; it’s fundamentally changed how I see footballers I perceive as “poor.” Like there are many, many awful players out there but now I’ll wonder if they also have a Gravenberch turn in them. By that I mean not only the spinny, juking midfield move he employs, but that any poor player could have a surprise turn, going from wretched to top class virtually overnight.

Eric, Los Angeles CA

Bad take

Leicester flavoured hot take for you. Patson Daka was going to be the new Jamie Vardy and rip sh*t up. To be fair, this was confidently stated after a 4 goal haul v Spartak Moscow in the Europa League the season he joined.

Rob, Leicester (the correct response was: who needs a new Jamie Vardy when we’ve got the old Jamie Vardy fuelled by a continuous reaction process involving red bull and skittles)

Commentary nonsense

Monday night’s Sky Premier league coverage featured some textbook commentating spam, perhaps best summarised by the following pearl from Andy Hinchcliffe:

“West Ham are going to struggle to get into the top half of the premier league this season, let alone the top 10 …”

Quality.

Hearing such gems helps to offset the innate anger I feel when someone says “he’s giving 110% !”

Who has made just the biggest mess of 2024 as a whole? There are obvious embarrassments at Spurs and Manchester United, but let England not be forgotten.

It is right that we find ourselves considering 2024’s greatest footballing sh*tshows at a time when especially Tottenham but especially Manchester United are sh*t-showing at their spectacular best (worst?) – but they are far from alone in having soiled the football bed this year.

There really has been a lot of sh*t on show.

This is very harsh on certain teams, because the vast mid-table morass currently clogging up the Premier League by definition contains a combination of over-achievers, under-achievers and… achievers. But it’s still a great big churning sea of mediocrity with all turds in it.

We’re going to slightly let City off their recent nonsense for their years of anti-nonsense and assume based on factors that they’re not going to be sh*tbone awful for that much longer and will ease away with the other currently less stupid members of the top four.

Below that we have from fifth-placed Nottingham Forest to 14th-placed West Ham a bunch of 10 teams separated by seven points who could finish in literally any order and it wouldn’t now be a surprise. Only two of them have scored more than 25 goals, and only two of them have conceded fewer than 20. Tottenham have managed to do both those things to absolutely no discernible benefit because of course they have.

Tottenham, Newcastle, Man United sitting forlornly between 11th and 13th should shame them all, and while misery loves company there really shouldn’t be any lasting excuse in the fact some other teams who should also know better also don’t.

The calendar year table tells a similar story. It’s kinder to some and harsher on others, but there are still the current top four, then a 15-point gap, then 10 further teams separated by just 10 points. And yes, there again are Spurs and Man United sitting level on points with Bournemouth and one ahead of Fulham.

We have some sympathy with the idea that Russell Martin might if anything, Clive, have got promoted too well at Southampton.

But having foolishly got Southampton into the Premier League, Russell Martin has then set about keeping them up by following not one but two wildly successful blueprints from last season.

Really is worth stepping back and marvelling at the sheer majesty of not just going “Let’s do what Burnley did” or “Let’s do what Sheffield United did” but going balls-out double-down “Let’s do what Burnley AND Sheffield United did”. In come Cameron Archer and Ben Brereton-Diaz, alongside a crazed PFM-baiting commitment to playing out from the back like prime Manchester City even when you have to deploy Alex McCarthy in goal against Liverpool.

It’s worked roughly as well as you might expect, with one win, two draws and 31 goals conceded in 15 games, although we of course join you all in giddy anticipation of Sunday evening’s visit from Dr Tottenham.

Dan Ashworth’s departure wasn’t the only thing that went wrong for Newcastle. What a shambles of a summer that was.

In essence as fans, if you’ve decided to row in fully behind your club selling the entirety of its soul and abandoning all your principles in return for unimaginable riches and unending success, then you do want to at the very least get some Chelsea or Manchester City success out of it.

You don’t want to realise a couple of years down the line that you’ve thoroughly debased yourself like that in return for spending £20million on a back-up keeper from Nottingham Forest and bringing in defenders from Bournemouth on a free and all with the net result of being stuck in the hilarious yet dispiriting mid-table mass of incompetence sandwiched in 12th between the main clusterf*ck clubs themselves: Spurs and Manchester United.

Newcastle fans can and will grumble about the actual effect of profit and sustainability rules being to in effect pull the drawbridge up behind the teams who had managed to buy their way into the elite before the Magpies got the chance.

And they’re not even really wrong. But what they will have to accept is that in their very specific case it is very grimly funny to watch the way an entire club and a huge chunk of its support sold themselves out for what really does look like now like it might amount to one failed Champions League campaign. Especially with the Saudis already clearly growing weary of coming up against brick walls at Newcastle and already turning their attention to other shinier, newer and gaudier baubles in their sportswashing collection.

The press boys didn’t like it one bit, but David Moyes and West Ham was a marriage that needed ending. Nobody was happy there. They wanted different things. It had gone really very stale.

We fully supported West Ham’s decision to move on at the time and still do. But we did think they were going to actually go in a different direction, rather than appointing a decent coach who is nevertheless essentially a Spanish Moyes. But a Spanish Moyes with a proven tendency to huff off if he isn’t happy with how things are going.

And nobody is happy with how things are going. Because the 2024/25 Premier League season is, as previously discussed, completely batsh*t, West Ham’s disastrous, sack-accelerating start to the season now sees them in dire straits yet trailing Manchester United by one point and Newcastle and Spurs by two. But what’s increasingly clear this season is that everyone needs to be making judgements of their team on its own merits rather than comparing it to what assorted other basket case clubs are up to.

Monday night’s game with Wolves was billed as El Sackico and fair enough. It ended perfectly, with a narrow and deeply unconvincing West Ham win that showed precisely why neither Lopetegui or Gary O’Neil is likely to survive much longer.

Genuinely, what – and indeed how – the f***? It still freaks our nut out that England started the tournament still experimenting with key positions and vital roles – Trent in midfield! Kane as a Haaland type! Someone to play on the left! – and got all the way to the final without ever really coming up with any compellingly convincing solutions to any of them. But imagine if they’d actually won the bloody thing. The rest of the continent would quite rightly be hanging its head in shame.

Europe as a whole owes Spain an enormous debt of gratitude for getting them all off the hook. Nobody need feel any shame for that excellent new and exciting Spain side coming out on top. But if Southgate’s confused and confusing Sufferballers had prevailed the shame across every nation would have quite rightly been vast. Because England were absolutely dreadful.

And while Spain thoroughly outplayed them in the final, it’s still worth remembering that the result was still far too close for comfort. Spain’s winning goal came dangerously late, and there was a good 90-second period after Cole Palmer’s wonderful equaliser where it really did seem like it was a continent-wide mugging was well and truly on.

It’s a tournament that already occupies a curious spot in our football consciousness. It’s weirdly blurred and fuzzy in the mind’s eye already. It doesn’t feel quite real somehow. Did England really get to a final playing like that? We’ve just spent five minutes trying to remember who England even played in the quarter-finals of a tournament five months ago, yet we could give you a minute-by-minute rundown of the Cameroon game from Italia 90.

And yet we do still vividly remember those fleeting moments at 1-1 in the final when England suddenly had all the momentum, until Kyle Walker decided to launch an attacking throw-in all the way back into his own half for literally no discernible reason. We think about that at least twice every single day.

Perhaps naively, we do think PSR was introduced with at least some good intentions. We certainly don’t think it was introduced to create the unedifying spectacle every June where teams with a black hole in the finances and facing possible points penalties set about conducting mutually advantageous transfers among themselves to get out of the mire.

But it is actually a very obvious loophole once you look at it for even a second. With players coming through the academy counting as ‘pure profit’ for the PSR accountants, the temptation to cash in on those assets is obvious. Beyond that, there’s the fact that the entire fee for a player’s exit can be chucked into the latest accounts, while money spent on players coming in can be amortised across a number of years’ worth.

And so, inevitably, as the June 30 deadline for the end of the PSR year approached, came a raft of absurd transfers. Most of which involved clubs at risk of punishment doing suspiciously convenient business directly with each other.

Premier League clubs spent almost £250m between the end of the 23/24 season and June 30, and it’s fair to say that not all of that money was spent with the intention of maximising on-field improvement.

Aston Villa, Everton, Chelsea and Newcastle were all busy bees in those crucial days of scrambling, and my word did they get some interesting business done. What glorious serendipity it was that Villa so admired Everton’s Lewis Dobbin while Everton were so impressed by Tim Iroegbunam that each agreed to give the other £9m and say no more about it.

What merry happenstance it was that Chelsea had seen enough in Omari Kellyman’s six Aston Villa appearances to pay £19m for him while in an entirely unrelated development Villa themselves saw fit to hand the Blues £35m for Ian Maatsen as backs were scratched and quids pro quod.

We’re still not precisely sure what arcane accountancy benefit Chelsea got out of spending £30m Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall but we’re sure there is one.

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Just a grimly depressing spectacle from start to finish. It has ultimately and inevitably cost a man his livelihood, made life harder for every other referee in the land, and given succour and fuel to the worst kind of very online, tinfoil-sporting fans (of all stripes) around.

David Coote was obviously done for the moment it all came out. Especially as one’s first thought was that he was so unbelievably stupid as to have allowed himself to be filmed calling Jurgen Klopp an arrogant German c***, there was almost no chance that a) this was a freak one-off error of judgement and thus b) the tabloids wouldn’t find more.

Coote has lost everything, but has perhaps learned who his actual friends are. There is a Partridgeian tragedy to some of the stories that have emerged. The aborted Travelodge Drugs Party is a harrowing tale of loneliness and middle-aged despair, while by the end of it his apparent need to impress people online led to him managing to get in trouble for correctly booking a player who collected 32 yellow cards in 171 games for Leeds.

While that highlighted how daft things had got, it also showed why he was done. It didn’t actually matter whether he’d done anything specifically wrong professionally. It didn’t matter that every referee in the world will think at least some of the far better paid people who scream at them and call them names and blame them for their own failings, in public, every week for 40 weeks of the year are c***s, actually.

What mattered is that nothing he could ever do as a referee could now ever be removed from his own daft stupidity at an afters with some tw*ts. Give a decision that hurts Liverpool? Off goes the internet. Well we all know why, don’t we. Give a decision that benefits Liverpool? Over-compensating.

There’s no point pretending it wasn’t funny to hear a referee speak the way he did. It was like hearing your teacher do a swear.

But what a genuinely pitiful way to lose absolutely everything you’ve worked for.

Lads, it’s Tottenham. Really, really, really Tottenham. Like you look at Tottenham in 2024 and ask how much more Tottenham it could be and the answer is ‘none’. None… more Tottenham.

Fans can and are arguing and debating who is to blame for it all, from Daniel Levy to Ange Postecoglou to Micky van de Van’s twangy hamstrings to James Maddison’s goal celebrations to leaving themselves perpetually in dread fear of one key injury sparking utter chaos in a season that was always likely to involve well over 50 matches and a playing style that appears custom-built to increase the risk of tissue injuries.

Spurs have crystallised and distilled Spursiness to the extent that we do now think we’re witnessing the very peak of it. Steven Chicken rightly noted after the latest nonsense against Chelsea that this season in particular has seen Spursiness extend far beyond its traditional N17 boundaries with all manner of daftness involving all manner of clubs. Yet still there Spurs are, right in the thick of it all and still the absolute best/worst nonsense creators in the sport.

And it’s been going on for the whole damn year, too. They’ve lost as many Premier League matches as they’ve won in 2024 and as previously noted have only managed to accrue the same number of points as Bournemouth and, even more damningly, Manchester United.

They are currently at the very peak of their powers, though. Across all competitions they have won only three of their last 10 matches. Two of those were against Man City, the other Aston Villa. Their two league wins in that wretched run have been 4-1 and 4-0 thrashings. They have also handed both Crystal Palace and Ipswich their first Premier League wins of the season, thrown away their second 2-0 lead of the season, conceded an injury-time equaliser at home to the 11th-best team in Italy, lost to Galatasaray and Bournemouth and somehow managed to avoid doing so after being thoroughly outplayed by Fulham.

Their next Premier League match is away at Southampton, a game in which there are quite literally only two possible outcomes: a 2-1 defeat that tells us everything, or a 4-1 win that tells us nothing.

Even by Manchester United’s recent standards, this has been quite the year. There are so many inevitable and easy contrasts to be drawn between Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s relentlessly grim penny-pinching in some areas and the wasteful incompetent profligacy in others.

While the great man has been LinkedIn-ing his way around laying people off, complaining about flexible working and mucky offices and ignoring the women’s team and removing concession ticket prices for minimal financial gain and all manner of terrible optics, United have also been giving Erik Ten Hag a new contract and hundreds of million pounds’ worth of new footballers and then realising what literally every other person on earth knew to be true and sacking him at ruinous expense a few months later.

And then there’s Ashworth, a nonsense cherry atop a nonsense cake that absolutely demands its own entry. One, because This Is Manchester United Football Club We’re Talking About and two, because it is very funny.

From Ashworth accidentally CCing Newcastle in on an email that confirmed United had tapped him up, to the months on gardening leave before his grand entrance, to his eventual appointment within a structure that gave Jason Wilcox far more power than any football fan in the 1990s could ever have predicted, to the bungled summer and his – again and undoubtedly ruinously expensive – departure this week after just five months of actual employment, it’s been a rollercoaster ride of complete ridiculousness from a club that was supposed to be moving past all this sort of caper now because the grown-ups were in charge.

The possibility of Ashworth may very well emerge from this ludicrous chapter that demeans all involved by stumbling upwards into a similar job at Arsenal would be a lovely coda.

Tottenham are ‘increasingly admiring’ Fulham boss Marco Silva as Ange Postecoglou comes under further pressure, according to reports.

Spurs have been in terrible form in recent weeks with their 4-3 loss to Chelsea at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday evening their sixth winless match in their last seven in all competitions.

Postecoglou was a breath of fresh air for Tottenham fans when he joined in 2023 after Antonio Conte, Jose Mourinho and Nuno Espirito Santo failed to impress.

Despite a promising start to his time in charge, Postecoglou is struggling to marry the results and attacking football as he comes under pressure to push up the Premier League table with Tottenham currently 11th.

And The Independent claims that Tottenham are giving ‘increasingly admiring looks’ towards Fulham boss Silva as fans start to lose faith in Postecoglou.

Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher reckons Postecoglou could now face the sack if he doesn’t change his playing style in certain situations and matches.

Carragher told Sky Sports: “Ange said how well they played. I can’t imagine any Liverpool manager I played for – and we conceded four in a game – would say in the interview we played well.

“If you play this way you’ll get the result like at Manchester City but you’d also get results like this one where you’re 2-0 up.

“I’ve never got my head around managers saying we play a ‘certain way and we will never change’ – I think it started with Pep Guardiola at Barcelona.

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“This idea that wherever they play, they will play their way. But that was the best team I’ve ever seen. Pep Guardiola then had to change his Man City team who were winning the leagues every season, putting centre-backs at full-back. This idea that you can’t change is alien to me.

“The game-state dictates how you play, not all the time but if you go away to a tough away ground you shouldn’t play the same way as you do against a team at the bottom.

“There’s this idea of playing a pure game and the Tottenham fans singing ‘We’ve got our Tottenham back’ but you won’t win anything, you won’t challenge.

“I wake up every morning hoping the sun is shining, so I can put some shorts and a T-shirt on but if it’s raining, you put your coat on.

“You can’t have this idea about playing one way, it won’t work. If it doesn’t change, he won’t be here next season.”

Thomas Frank, Andoni Iraola, Marco Silva and Nuno Espirito Santo must be looking awfully attractive to Spurs and Newcastle. Russell Martin, less so.

You can read Robbie Savage’s winners and losers here.

Thomas Frank

The record for most home goals scored in a Premier League season is 68, set by Chelsea in 2009/10. At their current rate, a Brentford side which battled relegation last campaign and sold their star striker in the summer will push them mightily close. None of this is normal.

Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa have long excelled as a partnership and individuals who do not demand the limelight nearly as much as Ivan Toney. Igor Thiago made his full debut against Newcastle and already looks acclimated to the physicality and pace of the division – no player won more aerial duels. And Kevin Schade has emerged as a ludicrously effective option to stretch defences and punish mistakes.

Frank cannot be faulted for his timing in taking Brentford into the top half. A handful of bigger, more illustrious clubs could well be searching for managers soon but there is something about his success at a bus stop in Hounslow which feels irreplicable elsewhere.

As foolish as Spurs, Newcastle, West Ham or Everton would be not to target him, Frank might well be even more stupid to take the bait and leave behind something as special as he has helped build at Brentford.

Nuno Espirito Santo

Between their promotion in summer 2022 and Steve Cooper’s sacking in December 2023, Nottingham Forest won two of 28 away games. Those victories came at relegated Southampton and peak nonsense Chelsea.

Nuno Espirito Santo’s first win after replacing Cooper did tease a change to that trend: a 3-1 rout of St James’ Park last Boxing Day. But at no stage did it feel as though the Portuguese would become the first Forest manager to win at Anfield and Old Trafford in the same Premier League season.

As ever, the beauty for Forest is in the simplicity of it all. Two of their tallest players scored headers, their most talented individuals on the ball either assisted (Elliot Anderson) or assisted and scored (Morgan Gibbs-White), their mastery of housery wound up the biggest “baby” and that resolute defence survived a half-hour onslaught to emerge with all three points.

Forest won nine games in both their two top-flight campaigns since being promoted. They are on seven victories with 23 games remaining. Wolves felt things had stagnated and he was never the right fit for Tottenham, but Nuno has found his perfect home while his former clubs doubt their current relationships.

Cole Palmer

Much is made of Palmer’s perceived intelligence – and there is certainly an element to which he plays up to the caricature in interviews – but his explanation of the second penalty against Spurs was revealing.

Whoever oversaw his media-training will have nodded sagely at the admission that “I’m just trying to score and thankfully it went in,” but adding that “when I’ve stepped back looked at the clock and thought the game’s a bit frantic. The keeper was ready to dive so I chipped it” made perfect sense.

Fraser Forster, having already made a few decent saves, always was likely to be carried away by the momentum and prospect of a match-saving moment and cajoled into picking either side. Palmer’s Panenka was pragmatism disguised as insouciance; he identified the most likely route to goal and took it. The technical expertise was just a happy by product.

It was quite Bergkamp in its use of skill as a form of efficiency. Say what you will of Palmer’s IQ, but in a footballing sense there are few quite as clever.

Andoni Iraola

The mere concept of ‘finishers’ remains enough for any Proper Football Man to lament that ‘they were just attacking subs when I was playing’, but Iraola has mastered the art so thoroughly that he has earned the right to call them whatever he wants.

Bournemouth have had more different goalscoring substitutes (seven) than Newcastle have had different scorers at any time this season (five). Their nine goals from the 76th minute onwards is more than any other club and them becoming the first team in Premier League history to win two away games after trailing as late as the 87th is no coincidence.

The instinct is that it’s unsustainable but the reality is that it’s a phenomenally effective back-up plan. If Bournemouth don’t press you off the pitch in 90 minutes, they’ll just use added time to pick you apart.

Aston Villa

A first clean sheet Premier League win since April’s ransacking of the Emirates, and a first Premier League victory in which Ollie Watkins did not start since November 2022, when his deputies were Danny Ings and Emi Buendia.

Boubacar Kamara’s return has instilled more bite and solidity in midfield, while Unai Emery is becoming more comfortable with his options in rotation. The Champions League should theoretically help unlock a squad capable of managing without first-choice players at centre-half, full-back and centre-forward, even though Tim Sherwood accused the Villa manager of showing Southampton “absolutely no respect whatsoever” by playing “reserve players”.

Emery made four changes to his starting line-up from the Brentford midweek win to bring in Diego Carlos, Pau Torres, Ian Maatsen and Jhon Duran, three of whom cost at least £30m with the other attracting interest worth twice as much.

Southampton will probably take that level of contempt at this stage. And after turning an eight-game winless streak into successive victories, Villa will hardly care.

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Ruud van Nistelrooy

A 21-game unbeaten run as manager, dating back to February 2023, and still it is difficult to work out just how good Van Nistelrooy is.

It has certainly been a solid start to life with Leicester. There are few more potent things in world football than Jamie Vardy under a new manager and while it feels a little rudimentary to praise a coach for salvaging a result after bringing on another forward, it is the sort of thing which only engenders belief in a coach.

In any case, Leicester continuing their knack for scoring late on is a welcome boost for Van Nistelrooy. Only Bournemouth have more goals after 90 minutes (five) than the Foxes, whose four in second-half stoppage-time so far have helped directly earn four points. And they didn’t even need Jordan Ayew to do it this time.

Antonee Robinson

The fact that Marco Silva has managed this Fulham rise while losing seemingly irreplaceable players in successive summers will go some way to softening the inevitable blow when interest in Robinson is finally acted upon this summer.

Aleksandar Mitrovic and Joao Palhinha are not missed in these parts, but the manager knows the role of “one of the best left-backs in this league” will be tougher to duplicate.

Few players have handled the threat of Bukayo Saka quite as well while still providing thrust and balance in attack. Robinson leads the way for combined tackles and interceptions across the league this season and has made as many passes into the penalty area as the Arsenal forward.

Silva has Arsenal’s number but is wise to keep it stored safely in Robinson’s pocket. If nothing else, his name and position lends itself to an easy if fairly expensive transition from Andy Robertson at Liverpool.

He is in the Premier League XI of the season so far. And deservedly so.

Will Hughes

A stunning ball for Daniel Munoz and wonderful corner for Maxence Lacroix established Hughes as the best ball-playing midfielder on a pitch also containing Kevin De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva and Ilkay Gundogan.

But really the most startling aspect of Hughes’ performance against Manchester City was that he did not commit a single foul. For those even vaguely familiar with his particularly brand of midfielding, that is an incredible statistic.

The 29-year-old is rarely factored in to ideal Palace sides with everyone fit and available – supporters are pining for that Cheick Doucoure and Adam Wharton pivot – but he has been their best player this season so far.

Premier League losers

Russell Martin

Having previously been of the idea Southampton will and perhaps should stick with Martin through an inevitable relegation in the hope of short-term pain being followed by long-term growth, his comments after the Villa defeat felt like a line in the sand.

Digging out players and officials is one thing, but having a pop at travelling supporters who have undertaken a three-hour journey at great expense in spite of a weather warning to watch their team disappoint yet again cannot possibly end well.

“We played out and got pressed just before that, which then makes Joe kick and it gets a cheer from the supporters, and we concede within about 10 seconds, so it is what it is,” Martin said after the game.

“They have a right to criticise everything else but it’s really important to understand why we do things. We kick it to our two smallest players and it comes back.”

For a start, that’s a curious omission of the massive mix-up between Taylor Harwood-Bellis and Nathan Wood when defending a high ball, which was a far bigger problem than the inexperienced Joe Lumley understandably going long immediately after making a mistake when playing it short.

But ultimately that is a cowardly attempt to shift responsibility onto anyone else. The idea that Martin’s way is the only one viable had long since worn thin with many as results and performances deteriorated with no sign of chance, but those quotes were the breaking point for the rest.

It feels very Vincent Kompany in terms of using a club as a vehicle for personal gain to showcase an attractive coaching philosophy which is nevertheless entirely unsustainable at the current level. At least Burnley had a chance of survival for most of last season; only the doomed Sheffield United in 2020/21 have ever earned fewer points after 15 games of a Premier League campaign than this hopeless Southampton side. It does not feel like Bayern Munich will be watching with great interest.

Spurs

With two narratively similar defeats to Chelsea as bookends, it is difficult to shake the idea that this just isn’t working.

From the 4-1 home loss littered with tactical inflexibility, individual mistakes and injuries in November 2023 to the 4-3 home loss littered with tactical inflexibility, individual mistakes and injuries in December 2024, Spurs have lost more league games than they have won (19 to 17) while picking up fewer points than Bournemouth and only four more than West Ham, having played two matches more.

Tottenham do have to stick with a plan eventually through periods like these if they are to complete this perennial painful rebuild, but it makes sense to wait for one to emerge which works more often than it doesn’t. The flashes of Postecoglou brilliance are no longer even close to eclipsing the dark shadows of these increasingly frequent moments.

This was why the Manchester City thrashing meant so little; that remains this unfathomable team’s only win in their last seven games. Performances and results like that should represent unbeatable highs but for Spurs and Postecoglou the inevitable subsequent downturn numbs the euphoria somewhat.

Manchester United

The good news is that Ruben Amorim has been here before. “I had this and worse in Sporting in the beginning,” he said after suffering consecutive league defeats for only the second time in his career.

“I know the feeling for me is the same. For the world it’s completely different because you know Sporting is in Portugal, but in Manchester you have a lot of attention, but for me it’s the same. The same feeling,” he added. And therein lies the problem: while growing pains in Portugal amount to an eight-game unbeaten start, in England it results in as many defeats as wins from the first five matches.

This was always going to take time. The problems Amorim inherited cannot be solved in a matter of weeks, no less in the middle of the most congested period of the schedule. Across his four league games so far there have been 20 different players used in the starting line-up; experimentation is inevitable, necessary and never the best foundation for immediate success.

But these setbacks do chip away slowly at belief, which will be the biggest test of Amorim’s suitability and aptitude. This is a fundamentally fragile team and while performances may slightly outweigh results in terms of importance currently, that cannot go on for too long. Even just to navigate this midweek-to-weekend grind it might be necessary to pause these trials in favour of more pragmatism, because these players have shown enough times already that their confidence levels can undermine any manager.

And while the exit of Dan Ashworth is ostensibly a positive for Amorim, it is also proof that this regime will not stick with something which is not working. The Portuguese is not at all close to that stage but stressing the need for time and patience less than a month into the post does not bode particularly well.

Kyle Walker

The reports of his demise have, if anything, been greatly understated. This has been a drop-off of monumental proportions, a fall from grace to contend with the very worst in Premier League history.

For years Walker defied the process of time. His athletic prowess and reading of the game belied his age and so often this winning machine leaned on him to carry out the thankless tasks and dirty work required to prop Manchester City up. Those six fingers Pep Guardiola held up recently would have been burned without that famed recovery pace.

But it no longer feels like a game goes by without the right-back making at least one costly mistake. He played Munoz onside for the first Palace goal and failed to even jump against the might of Lacroix before throwing his arms up in the air in existential angst.

Manchester City have won one of the eight Premier League games Walker has started this season. His continued presence in this team might be the most damning evaluation possible of their abhorrent recent squad building. No other serious side would have him near their starting line-up.

Newcastle

There is always a Rafael Benitez quote for any given problem.

“I have talked in the past about the ‘short blanket’…if you cover your head, you have your feet cold, but if you cover your feet, you have your head cold,” the Spaniard once said during his Newcastle reign about the “balance” between having a solid defence and strong attack.

It appears to have been handed down to Eddie Howe, who is no closer to solving the problem. Newcastle scored three goals and conceded just four in five games from the Manchester City draw to the Arsenal win, then scored nine and conceded 11 in their next five from the Forest victory to the Brentford defeat.

There is a maddening inconsistency to their performances, results and output. Only Crystal Palace, Ipswich and Brighton have earned a higher proportion of their overall points in games against the Big Six than Newcastle, and two of those teams are fighting relegation while the other has supplemented that tally well enough against the rest to be in contention for European qualification.

As well as Newcastle raise their game against Your Liverpools and Your Arsenals, it does feel like Howe’s tactical approach has leaned too far into that aggressive underdog mentality which cannot translate nearly as effectively against Your Brentfords and Your Crystal Palaces.

In the Premier League this season, Newcastle have failed to win any of the five games in which they have had 57% possession (their total against Brentford) or more, while going unbeaten in the five matches in which they have had less than 50%. It would be difficult to find a neater way to sum up the strengths and weaknesses of any given manager’s philosophy.

Arsenal

Not a poor result by any means in itself but at a time when Arsenal need something closer to perfection, there are just too many chinks apparent in the armour.

The set-piece criticism feels misdirected; chance creation through corners and free-kicks is hardly a stick with which to beat any team, yet it has helped obscure a drop-off in open play. Arsenal still rely heavily on Saka and Martin Odegaard to make the difference and while their quality generally does, the lack of a plan in case of emergency is clear.

Yet again, scratching away at the surface of a world-class first team is uncomfortably revealing. Jakub Kiwior is not of the requisite standard. Mikel Merino and Ethan Nwaneri are still getting up to speed from drastically different starting points. Gabriel Jesus cannot change the course of games anymore. Raheem Sterling no longer even seems trusted enough to be given the chance.

Arsenal will look back on those four games in October and November and know full well what cost them if Mikel Arteta does not turn this around by season’s end, but that has only increased the pressure on results since and that relentlessness they displayed in the second half of last season is nowhere to be seen.

Brighton

“We got punished for two easy mistakes. I think it happens now several times in the season, so I think learning from it is difficult to use. We need to find the right game management in this period of time to take away the three points,” said Fabian Hurzeler.

Only the current top four have led a greater proportion of their Premier League games this season than Brighton (36.1%), whose position in seventh tells the rest of the story: they have dropped points despite leading as late as the 68th and 70th minutes against Nottingham Forest and Liverpool, while this was their second draw from 2-0 up in the 86th minute against a team battling relegation.

As brilliant as Brighton are, there can only be frustration at how they should be even higher.

Chelsea tipped to challenge Liverpool but Robbie Savage can't believe Spurs...  Football365