We’re back once again with our Monday dose of snap judgements from the Premier League’s weekend action. This time we take a closer look at the games from Matchday 7.
Each Monday, we look back on the weekend’s Premier League football with some knee-jerk reactions that we should really be thinking through a little more.
So here we go again, with this week’s helping of hastily made conclusions, with a few numbers in there to attempt to back up what we’re saying.
Ange-Ball is Too Flawed for This Spurs Squad
There are some Tottenham fans who have now given up on Ange Postecoglou. There were others who had already lost hope before the weekend, unconvinced by the recent run of five wins in a row because three of them came in cup competitions against lesser opposition. Now, the embarrassment of Sunday’s capitulation from 2-0 up at half-time to lose at Brighton was the final straw, and an utterly catastrophic one at that.
A seriously troubling aspect of all of this for Spurs fans is that they can look unbelievably good. In the first half on Sunday, they played about as well as they have under the Australian, totally dominant, in full control and two goals to the good.
But as well as scoring twice, they also let plenty of good positions and chances go to waste, unable to take the game out of their opponents’ reach and, not for the first time this season – and this was a theme last season, too – they were made to pay for it.
Against Leicester, Spurs had enough chances to win the game a few times over but eventually fell to a woefully disappointing 1-1 draw. They couldn’t take their chances at Newcastle either, and lost that match.
The way Tottenham attack with abandon leaves them too open, so if they don’t take their chances, they can end up getting punished. They have the highest expected goals total in the Premier League this season (15.0 xG) but have underperformed their xG by -1.03. The best teams and players outperform their xG numbers, and they remain too fragile at the back to keep on failing to make their dominance count. They need to learn how to manage games better, and some will be wondering whether Postecoglou’s football allows them to do that.
It’s not yet time to say “goodbye, mate” to Postecoglou, but they need to learn to put games to bed or, failing that, seriously improve their defending.
Liverpool Are Definitely in the Title Race
Given they didn’t make a proper go of their title challenge last season, lost Jürgen Klopp in the summer and barely made a ripple in the transfer market, it was reasonable coming into the season to assume Liverpool might need a little while to adjust to life under Arne Slot. It was also reasonable to assume that after three wins to start the season, it would have been premature to start getting too excited. A 1-0 home defeat to Nottingham Forest that followed confirmed as much.
But now, seven games in, Liverpool are top of the league with what is by a distance the best defensive record in the league (two goals conceded) and the lowest xG against total (5.2), so it might just be time to consider them title contenders.
Saturday’s 1-0 win at Crystal Palace wasn’t the most convincing or resounding, but Selhurst Park is a tough place to go and Slot’s side came away with three points and yet another clean sheet.
In the weeks when Arsenal have made tough work of home games against promoted pair Leicester and Southampton, and Manchester City have dropped points at Newcastle and struggled past Fulham in a game they might well have lost having allowed the visitors chances worth 2.6 xG, Liverpool have looked the most assured of the three.
The next four Premier League fixtures after the international break, when they face Chelsea, Arsenal, Brighton and Aston Villa, might give a better reflection of where this team really is, but the last few weeks suggest they could well be in the title mix.
Wolves Are Actually in Trouble
For weeks on end, we’ve been putting off including Wolves in our knee-jerk reactions because it felt unfair to judge them too harshly given how tough their fixtures have been. According to our pre-season analysis of the Premier League schedule, Wolves had the most difficult opening 10 games of the 2024-25 season.
They have enough quality to have taken something from games against Arsenal, Chelsea, Newcastle, Aston Villa and Liverpool, but losing all of them is just about forgivable. But shipping five goals to Brentford, who had scored just eight goals in their first six games, very much is not.
Manager Gary O’Neil, who has done a fine job since taking over, didn’t hold back in his assessment.
“There was no structure,” he said. “A complete loss of control as to what the team were meant to do and where they were meant to be. The worst performance I’ve seen from the group since I’ve been here.”
Wolves have now allowed their opponents more shots on target (47) than any other team in the Premier League this season. Things don’t get much easier with Man City up next, but beyond that, there has to be a big improvement or Wolves will be in real trouble.
Brentford Are the Premier League’s Most Fun Team
Having last week become the first team in Premier League history to score inside the opening minute of three consecutive matches, Brentford left it late on Saturday. Against Wolves, it took them a whopping 76 seconds to break the deadlock.
They then went on to win a rollercoaster of an eight-goal thriller 5-3, with eight different players getting on the scoresheet, with the hosts taking the lead on three separate occasions. It’s the first time a team has taken the lead three times in a Premier League game since Liverpool did so against Leeds United in September 2020.
Brentford haven’t been the league’s most effective side this season, dropping eight points from winning positions (in part because they’ve scored so many early goals so have had a lot of leads to lose), but they have been a lot of fun.
Thomas Frank is not afraid of being pragmatic and having his side play long balls up the pitch, and in that sense they are unlike most of the rest of the Premier League. But right now, they are the most entertaining team.
The Overall Standard is Pretty Poor This Year
Outside the top three, who are streets ahead of everyone else, consistency and reliability are decidedly lacking among the Premier League’s 17 other teams.
After Newcastle dropped points at Everton on Saturday, fellow Champions League chasers Tottenham, Aston Villa, Chelsea and Manchester United all had a chance to take advantage on Sunday. The best any of them could do was draw.
Further down the table, both Fulham and Nottingham Forest have impressed, but they are both limited in attack and rely in the main on defences that have been proved to creak under pressure. Otherwise, there doesn’t appear to be much quality in the middle of the table.
At the bottom, meanwhile, this is only the third time in English top-flight history that as many as four teams have remained winless seven games into a season after 1964-65 (obviously you knew that) and 2021-22. Ipswich, Crystal Palace, Southampton and Wolves all look in trouble, and Leicester and Everton, with one win apiece, are hardly flying.
Mistakes are being made too frequently across the league, and teams are slipping up all over the shop. We’re sure this year’s contingent are worse than usual but we’re also hoping to be proven wrong.
West Ham Are Back!
Being numbers people, we always like records being broken, so we’re excited to announce the most knee-jerk reaction in the history of our weekly knee-jerk reactions column.
Yes, after a wholly underwhelming start to life under Julen Lopetegui in which a 3-0 win at Crystal Palace had been the sole highlight, we’re saying West Ham are BACK following their 4-1 thrashing of Ipswich on Saturday afternoon.
Mohammed Kudus and Michail Antonio got their first goals of the season and might have doubled their tallies had they not hit the woodwork instead. Jarrod Bowen, with a goal and an assist, looked back to something like the form we’ve come to expect from him in the last few years.
West Ham had a season-high 23 shots and generated a genuinely impressive 3.79 xG, the third-highest xG total by any team in a Premier League game this season.
Spurs are next up, an opponent they often raise their game against, so it’s is a good opportunity to build on this weekend’s display. We may have a better ideas as to whether they really are ‘back’ after that match.
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