Man City… lose? And Man United far less surprisingly do likewise – it’s F365’s 3pm Blackout
A big early test for our new Saturday afternoon feature as bastard g*lf plays havoc with the Sunday schedule leaving all last season’s top four in Saturday 3pm action. It was not a good 3pm for Manchester clubs. Or Derby. Or Everton. Pretty good for Wolves. Fine and dandy for Arsenal and West Ham.
Arsenal will hope sympathy goal kickstarts career of £60m risk
Mikel Arteta is a bit of a liar, isn’t he? Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka and William Saliba all started against Bournemouth when the Arsenal manager suggested they were not fit enough to do so, the cheeky so-and-so.
Arsenal fans might have feared this fixture given their injury struggles and Arteta did not ease their anxiety with his team news update on Friday. Those nerves ceased to exist at 2pm when the line-up came out. Saka was in for his 87th(!) consecutive Premier League appearance and he was joined in the line-up by Saliba and Rice, with Leandro Trossard returning to the bench. Lovely.
Saka overcame his knock to open the scoring and it was two penalties that put the result beyond doubt. The first was scored by club captain Martin Odegaard but importantly, Kai Havertz was given the second spot-kick, converting with confidence.
This could be a huge moment in the German’s career. The unselfishness from Saka and Odegaard to let him take it and the reaction from his teammates when it hit the back of the net was tremendous to see. They all knew he needed it. Havertz knew he needed it. They have all heard the noise and know what it means to get off the mark.
At £60million, many have questioned Arteta’s decision to buy Havertz from Chelsea, especially given the fact Arsenal’s London rivals were desperate to sell players to comply with FFP. The Spanish manager has earned the right to take this sort of risk in the transfer market, but the pressure is obviously there.
The majority of said pressure should have been on Arteta, not Havertz, as we have seen what he is (or isn’t) capable of in a Chelsea shirt. It hasn’t felt that way, though.
Havertz appears to be a confidence player and this goal should be just what the doctor ordered. Here’s hoping it can be the catalyst for a very successful career at the Emirates.
Report: Bournemouth 0-4 Arsenal: Saka overcomes knock to score as Havertz nets first Gunners goal
More Man United woes just par for the course
Little Ryder Cup joke for you there. Don’t get used to it, there won’t be any more. Another good joke, though, is Manchester United. They’re now firmly in that mode that Crisis Clubs so often adopt where the fundamental floor of their ability provides enough occasions that lead you to believe a corner has been turned. But it only ever leads down another cul-de-sac.
The most damning aspect of this latest home defeat is that it elicits no great surprise. Lost narrowly at home to Palace? Figures. It’s now three wins and four defeats for United in the league this season and it’s the wins that stand out as the less meaningful results. The defeats have felt far more meaningful than the wins for a club in a mess of false dawns and misleading occasional fits of competence.
United are a team currently full of square pegs in round holes. And some of the round pegs they do still have are now too fat to fit anyway. Sofyan Amrabat as an emergency left-back. Mason Mount as a six. Facundo Pallistri as a starter. It’s just grim and getting grimmer. United’s third-place finish last year certainly flattered them and owed much to the collapse of three of their usual rivals. Early evidence suggests there will be no such helping hand this time around – at least from two of them anyway – and United show no sign of being able to drag themselves out of their current funk.
Report: Manchester United 0-1 Crystal Palace: Andersen scores peach as Eagles get revenge for cup defeat
Luton take huge bite out of Derby target to halt Everton revival
A first win for Luton takes them level with the infamous Derby team everyone has their eye on and it’s an unlikely source of the first win for any of the promoted sides this season. It’s the same number of wins this season as Chelsea or Brentford, what were you worried about? It’s a huge result for Luton and halts the talk of record-breaking for a while at least and turns the pressure back on the three teams who remain without a win.
It also, quite obviously, stops in its tracks an Everton revival that had the potential to pull them clear of early trouble. After a couple of good results, you’d love to see Luton at home come around. But Everton looked the gift horse firmly in the mouth and are now right back in the soup.
Report: Everton 1-2 Luton: Look away Derby fans… Luton have won a Premier League game
‘The Korean guy’ gives Rodri-less Man City some rare pain
We could accept the defeat to Newcastle United during the week. It was in the Carabao Cup for starters; this Manchester City side have bigger fish to fry. On top of that, St James’ Park is one of the toughest places to go and Pep Guardiola was without Rodri, who is also out for the Premier League games against Wolves and Arsenal.
Although Rodri is vitally important to this City team, nobody expected them to stumble at Molineux, especially ahead of a massive game away to the Gunners. But no, the absence of their most important player (not Erling Haaland) proved crucial against Gary O’Neil’s side.
City couldn’t get going against Wolves and fell behind thanks to a Ruben Dias own goal. Unsurprisingly, he converted into his own goal thanks to some great work from Pedro Neto, who has started the season ridiculously well.
A wonder goal from Julian Alvarez made it 1-1 and we just assumed City would go on to win this game comfortably.
But no, Pep Guardiola’s disrespect towards Hwang Hee-chan came back to bite him on the backside. The player he referred to as “the Korean guy” in his pre-match press conference scored the winning goal to hand the champions their first defeat of the league season. In fact, their first dropped points of the season.
You know his name now, mate.
Report: Wolves 2-1 Manchester City: No Invincibles for City as ‘the Korean guy’ scores winner
Hammers do the necessary as difficulty tariff drops
Whole seasons can be built on routine 2-0 wins. There’s a lot to be said for routine 2-0 wins. Especially routine 2-0 wins that come after a promising start has fairly blamelessly hit the buffers with successive games against Manchester City and Liverpool. It made this potentially a more ticklish game than it might otherwise have been for the Hammers, with the Blades’ absurd travails last weekend only adding to the banana-skin feel of the whole affair.
A different West Ham team would absolutely have stomped all over that banana skin. This West Ham side shows encouraging signs of being averse to silliness, and you’ll generally accept an afternoon where the niggle is that you don’t manage to add to the first-half goals scored by Jarrod Bowen and Tomas Soucek. Given the fixture list they’ve had so far, West Ham had earned a straightforward afternoon and 13 points from seven games that include Chelsea, Brighton, City and Liverpool is hugely acceptable.
Report: West Ham 2-0 Sheffield United: Hammers victory puts more pressure on Heckingbottom
Newcastle fail to impress but get the three points
It was not Newcastle United’s best performance of the season, but their 2-0 win over Burnley has handed them the same amount of points they got for demolishing Sheffield United 8-0 away from home.
After a stuttery start on Saturday afternoon, it was a moment of magic from Miguel Almiron that opened the scoring. It was a left-footed strike Arjen Robben would have been proud of and it gave the Magpies a slender advantage at half-time.
Burnley struggled to threaten but any chance of getting something out of the game was taken away when Ameen Al-Dakhil took down Anthony Gordon in the box. Alexander Isak converted the penalty and Newcastle got the win before the small matter of Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League.
Report: Newcastle 2-0 Burnley: Almiron scores beauty, Isak bags penalty as Clarets lose again