After a weekend of Premier League drama, Alex Keble looks at key talking points and tactical lessons, including:
- Striking woes hit Arsenal's title hopes
- Salah shows gap between Liverpool and Newcastle
- How Dyche's formation change backfired
- Elanga success epitomises Man Utd's woes
- How Palmer masked Luton's brilliant performance
- Olise confirms his importance to Palace
- Can Lo Celso make his form consistent?
- Man City are looking ominous again
- Villa's record-breaking year ending on a high
- Brighton's recent goal struggles
Arsenal strikers' struggles hit title bid
Losing to West Ham United is a setback, but it’s an understandable one. To follow it up with defeat at Craven Cottage, and after leading in the fifth minute, is the kind of result that can derail an entire season.
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Arsenal have lost back-to-back Premier League matches for the first time this season, doubling their total season defeats in the process.
And in every sense this was a completely unexpected result, ending Arsenal’s run of 48 league matches unbeaten when going 1-0 ahead, and ending Fulham’s run of 26 league fixtures without a win when going 1-0 down.
Inevitably it has intensified discussion surrounding Arsenal’s goalscoring issues and the need for a more ruthless striker.
Arsenal's 13 shots v Fulham
Gabriel Jesus has scored three goals from 32 shots in the Premier League this season, Eddie Nketiah has netted one goal in his last 12 matches in all competitions, and Arsenal rank seventh in the table for goals scored (37).
Both Jesus and Nketiah are very good footballers, but neither has that selfish and lethal streak. Neither of them are killers, and that is what Arsenal need to turn territorial domination (they top the charts for penalty-box touches, with 723) into goals.
Salah reveals gap between top teams
Mohamed Salah might be in the best form of his life. It’s a bold claim, but this season Salah has added something significant to his repertoire, regularly assisting with beautiful, outside-of-the-boot threaded passes.
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Salah already has eight Premier League assists, a joint-competition high, putting him on track to smash his personal best.
Liverpool amassed an Expected Goals (xG) total of 7.27 against Newcastle United - the highest figure since records began in 2010/11 - and Salah was singlehandedly responsible for 4.2 of that total, with 2.7 xG and 1.5 expected assisted goals.
He has become the fifth player to score 150 Premier League goals for a single club and the third player to reach 20+ goal involvements in seven consecutive seasons. It feels a little cruel on Liverpool supporters that he hit those milestones right before the Africa Cup of Nations.
Beyond personal records, Salah’s performance highlighted the opposing journeys the two clubs have been on these past six months.
Newcastle have lost five of their last six Premier League matches and, as they sink towards the bottom half, are now 16 points behind Liverpool, having finished four points above them in 2022/23.
Dyche’s formation change backfires
For only the second time this season, Sean Dyche decided to go with a back five. The decision clearly backfired as Wolverhampton Wanderers ran out comfortable 3-0 victors.
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Everton’s three centre-backs struggled to communicate effectively or understand their relative positions to one another, which allowed Hwang Hee-chan and Matheus Cunha to break behind Everton’s surprisingly high defensive line all too often.
This was most obvious for the third goal, a calamitous misunderstanding between James Tarkowski and Michael Keane near the halfway line, but Wolves were repeatedly breaking through before Wolves had scored their first.
But the problems weren’t just in defence. The 5-3-2 shape felt uncomfortable for Everton and, perhaps unfamiliar with their roles, their pressing from front to back felt disordered, allowing Wolves to take control of the contest.
Everton's average positions v Wolves
The result leaves Everton in a spot of bother. They have conceded eight goals in their last three matches, as many as in their previous 10 combined, while defeat in all three leaves them just one point above the bottom three.
Elanga success epitomises Man Utd's woes
The most damning thing about Manchester United’s 2-1 defeat at Nottingham Forest is that Erik ten Hag’s team were simply outplayed.
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That is not meant as disrespect to Forest, who played superbly and richly deserved their win, but United’s significantly greater resources should prevent them from being second best throughout 90 minutes at the City Ground.
Indeed, Forest’s victory on Saturday evening seemed to mock Man Utd. Here was a team looking unified and entirely at ease in their tactical system despite manager Nuno Espirito Santo arriving at the club only two weeks previously.
Worse still, the hero was Anthony Elanga, a Man Utd academy product sold to make room for Antony, whose struggles continue. Elanga, with four goal involvements in his last three, now has 10 for the season.
That’s more than any Man Utd player.
It was, frankly, an ending befitting of Man Utd’s 2023. They have lost 21 matches in all competitions in the calendar year, the fourth-most in their entire history and the most since 1972.
United have also lost nine of their opening 20 league matches for the first time since 1989/90, which is already the same amount as across the whole of 2022/23.
Palmer masks Luton’s superb tactics
Cole Palmer is emerging as one of the best young players in Europe. At Kenilworth Road he became the fifth Chelsea player aged 21 or under to reach 10 goal involvements in a Premier League season, after Arjen Robben, Eden Hazard, Christian Pulisic and Mason Mount.
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But Palmer’s individual brilliance hid what had been an uncomfortable match for Chelsea, and an excellent tactical display from Luton Town, who hit the bar twice in the latter stages and could, with a bit more luck, have come back from 3-0 down to take all three points.
Rob Edwards’ 3-4-2-1 formation was expertly coached to pick holes in Mauricio Pochettino’s system.
Albert Sambi Lokonga and Ross Barkley dictated the tempo from the base of midfield as Luton calmly passed out under pressure, with both players neatly threading passes into Jacob Brown and Andros Townsend, who held intelligent positions between the lines and on the outside of Chelsea’s midfielders.
Luton played 44 progressive passes, their second-highest tally of the season, with 21 of these coming from their No 6s.
Adding to that threat, the two Luton wing-backs frequently exchanged passes with long diagonal switches of play, further unsettling Chelsea, ensuring the hosts found joy crossing from the byline.
Again, Luton achieved their second-highest season totals for switches, with five, and crosses, 36.
They ended the match having held more possession (51.4 per cent) than Chelsea and having taken more shots (15-12), which is scarcely believable considering Chelsea’s squad cost nearly a billion pounds more to build.
It was the kind of performance – slick, fine-tuned, and confrontational – that suggests Luton will go from strength to strength in their battle against the drop.
Olise confirms his importance to Palace
Roy Hodgson really needed this one. Crystal Palace’s eight-match winless run in the Premier League had plunged them into trouble, and after their previous five meetings with Brentford had ended in a draw hopes were not high at Selhurst Park.
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But Michael Olise stepped up, scoring twice in a Premier League match for the first time to take his tally to an impressive five in eight – one more than he managed in his previous 64 in the competition.
It has been a remarkable return from the injury that kept Olise from starting a Premier League match this season until 25 November, a little over five weeks ago.
Palace’s problems have run so deep Olise’s good form alone hasn’t been enough to lift them out of trouble, but of course his brace against Brentford – giving Hodgson only his second home win of 2023/24 - changes all that.
Olise is the key to Palace’s survival. It might be a long, nervy transfer window for Palace supporters.
Can Lo Celso make his form consistent?
Tottenham Hotspur are back to their best under Ange Postecoglou. That’s the conclusion we must draw from a fourth Premier League win in five that lifted them to within a single point of Arsenal near the summit of the table.
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AFC Bournemouth had 24 shots in the match, their most in the top flight since January 2019, but conceding chances and taking part in wild basketball matches is becoming the norm under Postecoglou.
The fans love it and it works more often than not, on this occasion thanks to the refreshing influence of Giovani Lo Celso, who assisted twice on his fourth Premier League start of the season.
Lo Celso added a James Maddison-like touch of elegance and flair in attacking midfield, the highlight of his performance being a threaded through-ball to assist Son Heung-min all-important cushion goal.
It was the first time Lo Celso has ever been involved in two goals in a single league game for Spurs. The challenge now is to seize this rare opportunity to cement his place in the first team.
Man City procession an ominous sign
We shouldn’t read too much into a simple home win against the Premier League’s bottom club - although Sheffield United’s 1-1 draw at Villa Park showed they are no pushovers.
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Still, Manchester City were so dominant at the Etihad Stadium that their title rivals may be starting to fear a typical new-year run to the summit.
Man City’s 938 successful passes is the second-most ever recorded in a Premier League match since 2003/04, while their staggering 81.8 per cent possession was the most in a top-flight match since May 2021.
Two wins from two since winning the FIFA Club World Cup is a confident way for Pep Guardiola’s side to end a year in which they won pretty much every piece of silverware going – and went unbeaten at the Etihad in all competitions, winning 25 and drawing three of their 28 matches.
Of course, things have been a little thornier of late, and in fact Man City’s 2-0 win on Saturday was their first clean sheet in the competition since winning against Man Utd at Old Trafford on 29 October, nine league matches ago.
There will be bigger challenges ahead and it will take more than a win against Sheff Utd to prove their problems are behind them. But for the rest of the league, it was a clear warning shot.
| Position Pos | Club | Played Pl | GD | Points Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Man City
MCI
|
36 | +58 | 85 |
| 2 |
Arsenal
ARS
|
36 | +60 | 83 |
| 3 |
Liverpool
LIV
|
36 | +43 | 78 |
| 4 |
Aston Villa
AVL
|
36 | +20 | 67 |
| 5 |
Spurs
TOT
|
36 | +12 | 63 |
Villa’s record-breaking year ends on much-needed high
Two matches without a win isn’t exactly a disaster, but drawing at home to bottom-club Sheff Utd and then letting a 2-0 lead at Old Tafford slip will have had pessimistic Aston Villa supporters worried.
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They badly needed a victory at Villa Park to put that mini wobble behind them, and while it wasn’t the most convincing of performances – requiring a late Douglas Luiz penalty to take the points – Unai Emery will be satisfied.
The result meant Villa have won more home matches, with 17, and earned more home points, with 53, than any other Premier League side in 2023. It is a significant achievement that encapsulates Emery’s miraculous year at the club.
Speaking of calendar-year records, Ollie Watkins moved to 32 goal involvements in 2023, putting him third in the Premier League behind Salah and Erling Haaland, with 39 and 38 respectively.
Brighton’s goalscoring problems are returning
There is no shame in a point at London Stadium, but the 0-0 draw on Tuesday evening formed part of a wider pattern for Roberto De Zerbi that threatens Brighton’s campaign.
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They have failed to score in two of their last four league matches, having drawn a blank just once in the 44 matches before that, and couldn’t find the net at West Ham despite having 22 shots, the most the Hammers have faced in a home match since December 2017.
It was all a bit Graham Potter-y. Brighton have won just one of their last five matches in the Premier Legaue and although they have scored six goals in that time, four came against Postecoglou’s wide-open Spurs.
Profligate finishing has re-emerged just as Brighton begin a run of matches against defensive teams whose deep blocks will likely frustrate De Zerbi’s tactics. January is set to be a huge month for the club.
