The first FA Cup weekend of the season acts as a firebreak from the flurry of Premier League matches packed into the festive period and provides us with time to pause for reflection.
And the first thought that comes to mind, surveying where we sit just past the halfway mark, is that 2023/24 is shaping up to be an all-time classic.
The quality of the football has never been higher and all 20 clubs are interesting in their own way. More significantly, it’s fair to say most pre-season predictions are already out the window.
Nobody thought just six points would separate the top five at this stage. That is the headline, yet there are unexpected stories up and down the league table, from Aston Villa’s rise to Newcastle United’s fall.
| Position Pos | Club | Played Pl | GD | Points Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Arsenal
ARS
|
36 | +60 | 83 |
| 2 |
Man City
MCI
|
35 | +54 | 82 |
| 3 |
Liverpool
LIV
|
36 | +43 | 78 |
| 4 |
Aston Villa
AVL
|
36 | +20 | 67 |
| 5 |
Spurs
TOT
|
35 | +11 | 60 |
Here’s our big review of the 2023/24 season so far.
Leaders 'Liverpool 2.0' epitomise 2023/24
A radical summer rebuild of central midfield signalled a difficult transition year for Jurgen Klopp, who nicknamed the project "Liverpool 2.0" back in September.
He will be surprised, then, to find his team three points clear at the top of the table, a position that’s symbolic of a particularly unwieldy and free-scoring Premier League season.
At the time of writing there have been 616 goals in 197 matches in 2023/24. At a rate of 3.13 goals per match, this season is on track to obliterate the 38-match record set in 2022/23 by over 100 goals, where the total stood at 1,084.
Things have felt pretty weird. Plenty of clubs seem erratic in defence but lethal in attack, reflecting a mixture of fatigue following the FIFA 2022 World Cup and the Premier League’s move towards furious transition-focused, high-pressing football.
Nobody epitomises that culture better than Liverpool, whose new-look midfield means plenty of space for opposition counter-attacks, and whose front line are a menacingly unpredictable threat.
In years gone by, it would be a mixture too chaotic to go the distance. But this season there is room for a little madness.
Liverpool's next five fixtures
Man City’s post-Treble wobble opens up title race
Arguably the biggest story of 2023/24 so far has been Manchester City’s stuttering first half of their title defence.
Fears of a post-Treble hangover appear to have come to fruition. Indeed, Pep Guardiola’s assertion after winning the FIFA Club World Cup that “the job was done”, and an eight-year book had closed, alludes to that feeling.
But Guardiola also said his players were “still hungry and motivated” to write a new book, and back-to-back league wins on their return from Saudi Arabia leaves them within touching distance of the top.
Nevertheless, so far Man City seem slower, more ponderous, and vulnerable to counter-punches.
The 1-0 defeat at Aston Villa – a nadir for the Guardiola era, in which their second and final shot of the match came in the 11th minute – felt representative of a wider decline.
The subsequent 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace, who came back from two goals down, suggested the problems won’t go away overnight.
Kevin De Bruyne’s return from injury this month may patch things up, but for the time being Man City’s struggles have given us a wide-open title race fought by as many as five clubs.
Man City's next five fixtures
Ange and Emery take league by storm
Ange Postecoglou’s incredible start to life at Tottenham Hotspur was briefly tempered in the autumn, but a strong Christmas period has put his Spurs project back into the limelight.
Postecoglou’s team continue to play adventurous and full-blooded attacking football despite injury setbacks and – most entertaining of all – are stubbornly refusing to adapt their game.
Spurs’ 4-1 defeat to Chelsea, when Ange’s nine men held a ludicrous high line, was one of the most bizarre matches in Premier League history.
From that point on, his football was increasingly labelled as naive, but Spurs have ridden out that tough spell to prove that Postecoglou’s patience and self-assurance pays dividends in the end.
Spurs have kept playing their way, kept producing compelling matches, and emerged as title contenders.
Spurs' next five fixtures
Villa’s rise is even more spectacular. Unai Emery has performed miracles at Villa Park and, despite a couple of disappointing results over Christmas, his team remain on course to at least qualify for the UEFA Champions League.
Emery is the polar opposite of Postecoglou, tweaking his tactics from game to game to keep opponents on their toes. It makes Villa fascinating to watch and has restored Emery’s reputation as one of the world’s best coaches.
That 1-0 win over Man City, followed by the 1-0 success against Arsenal a few days later, got everyone excited, and had Villa held onto their 2-0 lead at Old Trafford on Boxing Day they would still be joint-top.
Instead, tiny cracks have appeared. But with a deep bench and a fixture schedule without European interruption until March, there is still a chance Villa will last the distance.
Villa's next five fixtures
Newcastle’s fatigue brings alarming decline
There was a point towards the end of September when it looked as though Newcastle had stabilised, but it would prove to be the outlier. A run of five defeats from their last six matches leaves the Magpies on the verge of dropping out of the top 10.
| Position Pos | Club | Played Pl | GD | Points Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 |
Chelsea
CHE
|
35 | +11 | 54 |
| 8 |
Man Utd
MUN
|
35 | -3 | 54 |
| 9 |
West Ham
WHU
|
36 | -14 | 49 |
| 10 |
Bournemouth
BOU
|
36 | -11 | 48 |
| 11 |
Brighton
BHA
|
35 | -4 | 47 |
| 12 |
Wolves
WOL
|
36 | -11 | 46 |
Most people predicted Newcastle would fall back a little this year after such an outstanding overachievement in 2022/23, but it’s fair to say few thought they would suffer to quite this extent.
The problem appears to be exhaustion. Newcastle players are dropping like flies with soft-tissue injuries, and those who remain on the field regularly look tired, causing Eddie Howe’s high-octane midfield press to collapse.
Their season hasn’t been without its highs, most notably the 8-0 win at Sheffield United and the 4-1 victory over Paris Saint-Germain, a night that supporters will never forget. But falling out of Europe altogether was a huge disappointment.
Newcastle were supposed to be a club rapidly on the rise. Instead, they are looking down the barrel of a lost season.
Bournemouth and Wolves are surprise packages
A lot of people felt sacking of Gary O’Neil was extremely harsh and that AFC Bournemouth, who upset the odds by staying up in 2022/23, were unlikely to find their feet quickly enough under Andoni Iraola to repeat the feat this season.
For a while, that looked to be accurate. Bournemouth failed to win a single one of their opening nine Premier League matches, which makes their current league position of 12th all the more remarkable.
Iraola found the right combination of forwards to enact his hard-pressing, fast-transition football in style, and with the help of Dominic Solanke’s rich goalscoring form they won 22 points from the next 10 matches.
Bournemouth are now one of the most stylish teams in the Premier League, justifying the decision to let O’Neil go.
Bournemouth's next five fixtures
It turned out to be a good move for both parties.
O’Neil’s Wolverhampton Wanderers are a fine-tuned counter-attacking machine led by the outstanding trio of Matheus Cunha, Hwang Hee-chan and Pedro Neto, who have helped claim big scalps at Molineux including Man City, Spurs and Chelsea.
Their successes are even more impressive when considering O’Neil arrived on the eve of the new season following Julen Lopetegui’s shock departure.
At that point, many pundits assumed Wolves had condemned themselves. Five months later, they are closing in on the top 10 and European contention.
Wolves' next five fixtures
Man Utd and Chelsea defined by endless false starts
Manchester United and Chelsea are both in crisis and not: the two Schrodinger’s cats of this Premier League season.
Erik ten Hag has seemingly hovered on the brink for large sections of the campaign, and yet Man Utd always find a positive result just in time. The turnaround to beat Villa on Boxing Day is the best example but there are many others.
United continue to look tactically formless for the most part, although – if you look hard enough – there are signs Ten Hag wants a high-pressing team who favour direct attacks over possession, hence the packing of the final third with quick dribblers.
It’s been one step forward one step back all season. Only once have United won or lost more than two league matches in a row and, with a record of W10 D1 L9, they seem to follow a simple oscillating win-lose pattern.
Man Utd's next five fixtures
Chelsea are just as frustrating. One moment the Mauricio Pochettino project appears to take off, and then the next their goalscoring issues re-emerge and Chelsea sink back down again.
Between the two boxes the tactical patterns are coming together nicely, and for that reason Chelsea are in a more optimistic place than Man Utd.
Still, the frustration never quite goes away and Chelsea repeatedly struggle playing against low blocks, leaving them almost as close to the bottom three (13 points) as the top four (12 points).
Chelsea's next five fixtures
Luton emerge as best-placed promoted club
The relegation battle hasn’t been quite as gripping this season as it usually is, mainly because the three promoted clubs have struggled to adapt.
But a typical three or four-way tussle threatens to open up as Luton Town’s form turns a corner.
| Position Pos | Club | Played Pl | GD | Points Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 |
Crystal Palace
CRY
|
36 | -8 | 43 |
| 15 |
Everton
EVE
|
36 | -11 | 37 |
| 16 |
Brentford
BRE
|
36 | -8 | 36 |
| 17 |
Nott'm Forest
NFO
|
36 | -18 | 29 |
| 18 |
Luton
LUT
|
36 | -29 | 26 |
| 19 |
Burnley
BUR
|
36 | -35 | 24 |
| 20 |
Sheffield Utd
SHU
|
36 | -65 | 16 |
Rob Edwards’ side have become the battle-hardened club we had anticipated, with the unique elements of Kenilworth Road beginning to work to their advantage.
Ross Barkley’s form has helped make Luton look like they belong at this level, as evidenced by the 1-0 win over Newcastle and unfortunate one-goal defeats to Man City, Arsenal and Chelsea.
Luton are very much in the fight now, dragging Crystal Palace, Brentford and Everton into trouble in the process.
One of the most enthralling Premier League seasons of all time was missing just one thing: a relegation battle that could go to the wire. Thanks to Luton, that final box might be ticked.