Man City crush Newcastle in APT Derby as Bournemouth eye Champions League – it’s the 3pm Blackout
We’re still annoyed that Manchester City v Newcastle – surely the most ‘Saturday 5.30pm’ fixture imaginable – wasn’t on the telly, and that’s before even considering that in its place sits the profoundly 3pm Crystal Palace v Everton.
Anyway, City p*ssed it. Newcastle weren’t the only team to suffer a Champions League setback, either, with Forest losing at Fulham and Aston Villa frustrated by 10-man Ipswich.
Aston Villa 1-1 Ipswich: Villa suffer one of those days in serious dent to hopes of European repeat
We all had a lot of fun with the idea of things that every fan thinks Could Only Happen To Us, and here was a masterclass of an It Could Only Happen To Us slip-up from Villa. Fans of literally every other club in the land, please do try and remember the existence of this game when insisting that yours is the only club that ever has days like this.
Villa here were at home to a side in obviously hefty relegation trouble, a side whose last bit of Premier League action had involved achieving what football boffins had long considered impossible outside laboratory conditions: losing at home to Southampton. Chuck in the fact Ipswich were down to 10 men from the 40th minute thanks to a pair of Axel Tuanzebe yellow cards that had us pondering just what is the window of opportunity for two yellows to be achieved ‘in quick succession’ (we’re not sure where exactly the cut-off is, but 12 minutes feels to us like it might just fall outside it, unfortunately) and you’ve got all the ingredients you need.
Those are conditions in which you, as a team in the last 16 of the Champions League that would very much like to be in that competition again next season, absolutely have to go on and win.
Every other club would win that game, wouldn’t they? Not your club, though. Your daft lot will have 25 shots (to the opposition’s four) and 16 corners (to one) and 76 per cent of the possession (to, well, you can do the maths there yourselves) and still need an equaliser just to avoid defeat. This is a maddening and stupid sport and we are all fools for devoting so much time and effort on what is essentially just a bunch of stuff that happens.
(Dave Tickner)
Fulham 2-1 Nottingham Forest: Cottagers prevail in Battle of the Barclaysmen
When Adama Traore assisted Emile Smith Rowe to score the opener here we wondered whether that was the most Barclaysman goal it was possible to achieve in big 2025, and then Morgan Gibbs-White assisted Chris Wood and we didn’t know what to think.
Even Raul Jimenez setting up Calvin Bassey for the winner is not without its charms.
What it does all definitely mean is a slightly choppy second straight away defeat for a Forest side that had previously only suffered that fate this season when they had Arsenal and Man City in successive away games.
Nothing is ruined, obviously, when you still find yourself using the phrase ‘weakened their grip on third place, now just three points ahead of Man City’ but it’s one that will sting a bit.
Happy days for Fulham, though, for whom their own result forms merely the centrepiece of what is shaping up to be a fine weekend for them overall with Villa failing to win at home to Ipswich and the two sides now immediately above the Cottagers and very much in range – Newcastle and Chelsea – suffering heavy defeats.
(DT)
Man City 4-0 Newcastle: Marmoush hat-trick in APT derby gives City Champions League advantage
Newcastle United have never won a Premier League match at the Etihad/City of Manchester Stadium and Saturday’s match was a decent opportunity to break the duck. They never came close.
Despite recent home defeats to Bournemouth and Fulham, Newcastle arrived at the Etihad in a Good Moment and confident of putting in a good performance. They pressed high early on, knowing Man City are there for the taking, but they were outdone by a long Ederson pass that Kieran Trippier dealt with woefully.
Ederson recorded his third Premier League assist of the season by successfully finding January signing Omar Marmoush over Trippier’s head and the Egyptian lobbed Martin Dubravka to open the floodgates.
Marmoush’s first came in the 19th minute and he had a hat-trick 14 minutes later. The second was nice finish to beat Dubravka at the front post and the third came via a Savinho assist and some abysmal Lewis Hall ‘defending’. Hall’s attempt to contain Savinho was to run beside him. It was an interesting tactic and one that did not even nearly work.
It was game over at half time, yet James McAtee rubbed salt in the wounds with a late fourth, converting from an Erling Haaland flick-on.
Haaland was later substituted with a non-contact knee injury, which is almost always bad news. He was able to walk off so Pep Guardiola will be hopeful it is nothing serious. Not ideal with matches against Real Madrid and Liverpool next week, mind.
Man City doubled their 2025 Premier League clean sheet count against Newcastle, who were incredibly unimpressive on a day they should have at least made it uncomfortable for the champions.
Instead, it is another defeat in a long line of awful Etihad away days and as a result, Eddie Howe’s side have been dealt a big blow in their quest for Champions League qualification.
This was a huge match and a victory elsewhere for Bournemouth makes matters worse for the Magpies. City are up to fourth, three points behind Nottingham Forest.
Defeat in Manchester changes the landscape as instead of looking at Forest, Bournemouth and City above them, Newcastle are now looking over their shoulder at Fulham, Aston Villa and Brighton. It has been a crazy season in the race for European football with anyone from Bournemouth to Brentford in with a chance, while Tottenham and Manchester United struggle in the bottom half.
It has been a big week for both clubs though, after City’s significant tribunal result against the Premier League. It’s a shame the APT derby was not as competitive as the APT court case.
(Jason Soutar)
Southampton 1-3 Bournemouth: Saints flattered by score as Cherries dream of Champions League
The scoreline flattered doomed Southampton against Bournemouth, with Aaron Ramsdale keeping it respectable but was ultimately helpless yet again.
Ramsdale made a bold decision to join Southampton last summer. He was clearly desperate to play football, which you cannot knock him for. He has conceded a boatload of goals and is destined for another relegation on his CV but he has made some ridiculous saves this season.
His best probably came against Bournemouth on Saturday afternoon, clawing a Ryan Christie header off the line from a corner he conceded from another brilliant stop to deny Antoine Semenyo.
No matter how many world-class or camera saves he makes, there is no saving this Southampton team – they are doomed, which is something we have known for a long time.
Bournemouth was always going to be a huge test for Ivan Juric’s men and Ramsdale was the reason they did not concede five or six, even stopping Kyle Walker-Peters from scoring an own goal with an athletic stop.
The versatile Cherries attack ran rings around the Saints defence but their man of the match was midfielder Christie, who assisted the first with a peach of a cross, minutes before smashing the ball into the bottom corner from 25 yards.
Kamaldeen Sulemana halved the deficit to set up an unexpected nervy end but Marcus Tavernier restored his side’s two goal lead seven minutes from time.
It was another impressive Bournemouth performance, which came on a weekend with Chelsea, Newcastle and Nottingham Forest defeats. Fantastic stuff, lads.
(JS)
West Ham 0-1 Brentford: Bees extend season of two halves for no real reason other than they can
It is now without doubt one of our very favourite bits this season. We were quite big fans of Brentford’s behaviour even before Christmas when it was just ‘win all home games by improbably entertaining scorelines while losing all the time away from home’. It was already good fun.
But the commitment to the bit to simply turn both those behaviours on their head is sensational. If you’re going to bob around in mid-table – and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a bit of mid-table bobbing – then you might as well make it more interesting by going around completing side quests.
There are even bonus points awarded here for Brentford’s latest away success coming against West Ham, the only team they didn’t beat at home during those bonkers opening months of the season.
To reiterate and update the overall numbers, here’s where we’re at with Brentford.
Until the weekend before Christmas, they had played eight home games and won seven of them to go with that draw against West Ham. For good measure, the scorelines for the last five straight wins of that run were 5-3, 4-3, 3-2, 4-1, and 4-2. At this time they had also played eight away games and managed just a single, solitary point from a goalless draw at Everton.
Since that time, and on the back of some kind of bizarre Christmas miracle, Brentford have taken just one point from five home games in which they even contrived to lose to actual real-life Spurs (but not, it should be noted, Man City) yet in that time have also now taken 10 points from their last four away games.
And with Leicester away next week there is every chance for this silliness to be extended further. Their away games after that, in fairness, are Bournemouth, Newcastle, Arsenal, and Forest, so if they do manage to extend this all the way into the final flourish at Ipswich and Wolves in May then fair bloody play to them.
As for West Ham, they remain one of a large clump of clubs who should consider themselves immensely fortunate this season’s bottom four is what it is.
(DT)
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