F365’s 3pm Blackout: Spurs strike gold with £51m star, Potter sack, Wolves f**k Leeds lead and their season

We are starting a movement: Rafa Benitez to West Ham.

There was a good batch of 3pm kick-offs in the Premier League this weekend. There was an early-season relegation six-pointer between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Leeds United, Brighton & Hove Albion played Tottenham Hotspur in a game we can’t believe isn’t on the tele when Fulham vs Brentford is, Burnley took on Ange Postecoglou’s Nottingham Forest, and under-pressure West Ham boss Graham Potter needed a positive result at home to Crystal Palace.

It’s Football365’s 3pm Blackout…

Wolves 1-3 Leeds: Wolves f**k it on and off the pitch as Farke’s men win six-pointer

Can a club’s fifth game of the season be described as a six-pointer? Well, we’re going for it. Leeds deservedly won a huge game at Wolves, in a result that makes the latter’s hierarchy look rather foolish.

On Thursday, Wolves, bottom of the Premier League with four defeats from four, announced a new three-year contract for head coach Vitor Pereira. On Saturday, it became five defeats out of five as Leeds came from behind to win 3-1 at Molineux.

Wolves badly needed a win from somewhere, and hosting Daniel Farke’s side felt like the perfect opportunity. It started so well when summer signing Ladislav Krejci put them ahead in the eighth minute.

But before half-time, Leeds were 3-1 up thanks to a tidy Dominic Calvert-Lewin header, a world-class Anton Stach free-kick, and a Noah Okafor finish that Jose Sa really should have done better with.

Leeds didn’t have to work particularly hard to keep the scoreline the same after the break. Wolves slung in cross after cross with big strikers Jorgen Strand Larsen and Tolu Arokodare somewhere in there. Marshall Munetsi had one decent chance from an Arokodare knock-down, but other than that Karl Darlow didn’t have much to do. He made some saves, but nothing too complicated.

The result means Leeds have now won two of their opening five Premier League matches — one home, one away — which bodes well for an interesting relegation battle this season, even though Wolves are trying their absolute best to fill the role of the shockingly bad newly-promoted team.

Pereira’s contract extension already looks a poor decision, when it was a baffling one anyway given Wolves’ dreadful start. There is a long way to go and he’s not going to get sacked any time soon, but it could easily come in time for Christmas. And if Nuno Espirito Santo happens to be available then, it does feel written in the stars.

Jason Soutar

Brighton 2-2 Spurs: Simons inspires comeback playing in his *actual* position

If there is a lesson to be gleaned from this week in the history of the Tottenham it’s that Xavi Simons, the very good No.10 signed at great expense this summer, is a very good No.10.

A good left-winger? Not so much, at least not in this team. The contrast between his ineffective performance from the start against Villarreal and the substitute cameo which helped inspire a comeback point against Brighton was stark.

Brighton were as good value for their lead as Spurs were for the recovery. Yankuba Minteh and Yasin Ayari took their goals impeccably, albeit with a helping hand from high lines and the lack of structural integrity in Guglielmo Vicario’s wrist.

Both Spurs goals had an element of fortune about them, from Mohammed Kudus’ mis-hit shot playing directly into the feet of Richarlison and Jan Paul van Hecke nudging a cross into his own goal. But neither side can argue it was not a fair result.

The introduction of Simons marked a real shift in momentum. Only Ayari and Richarlison had more than his three shots and the Dutchman embraced the creative responsibility afforded to him in the middle.

There is no other player, certainly not available, of whom that can be said in this Spurs squad. That’s what £51m can buy.

Brighton’s substitutions after Simons came on tell a story: Milner for Gruda; Welbeck for Rutter; Coppola for Minteh; and Wieffer for Kadioglu. It does not come naturally for this team or manager to shut up shop but they had to try something to resist the Simons effect.

Matt Stead

West Ham 1-2 Crystal Palace: Hammers are broken and Potter’s time is up

It was a surprise that of the 1,382 words West Ham felt compelled to publish on their official website earlier in the week, “I’m not owned” was not among them.

Yet they did continue to insist, as they slowly shrank and transformed into a corn cob/sham of an institution, that things were fine under Graham Potter because the atmosphere at the training ground was ‘unique’ and ‘intimate’ and the manager’s ‘philosophy’ is ‘built on the values that underpin the identity of our football club – including the importance of creating a pathway to the first team for our young Academy players.’

So of course a few days later, following the planned protests against an ownership accused in no uncertain terms of ‘destroying West Ham United’, Ollie Scarles was the sole homegrown representative as the London Stadium turned toxic in defeat to Crystal Palace.

Mads Hermansen being dropped for Alphonse Areola and James Ward-Prowse remaining an immobile midfield mainstay while Soungoutou Magassa takes notes from the bench was also hardly a resounding endorsement of the vaunted ‘new strategy and approach’ on player recruitment.

But Jarrod Bowen is as willing as ever to sacrifice his peak professional years in the name of this ludicrous club so that’s something.

It’s not nearly enough, neither in this game nor the grander scheme. His headed equaliser from an El Hadji Malick Diouf corner was excellent but Bowen alone cannot counteract an inability to defend such deliveries at the other end or create much of note besides.

This has to be it for Potter. Palace had far less possession, more than twice as many shots, a far clearer plan and complete squad alignment on how that was going to be achieved. The difference in the standard of coaching was absurd.

MORE ON POTTER’S REPLACEMENTS
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What West Ham would give for Oliver Glasner, the architect behind a 17-game unbeaten Palace run which has included more wins than Potter has mustered in this entire sorry reign.

Yet the truth remains that appointing the right manager is barely a fraction of the battle the Hammers face to turn things around. The culture is broken and everything from the stands to the pitch to the boardroom is defined by division.

There is no quick fix. Not even Nuno Espirito Santo, the spiritually obvious successor of the poisoned chalice, who was photographed this week at a restaurant near the owner’s house while dreaded votes of confidence in Potter were presumably still being drafted.

At this point West Ham and David Sullivan should probably just lean entirely into the parody and consummate a marriage they have flirted with for over a decade as they continue the infernal cycle of foreign-Brit-foreign and attacking-focused to defensive-minded.

“People still ask me, ‘Do you want to coach?’ For sure, I do, particularly in England and Europe. I do not want people to think I am finished. I am still evolving,” said Rafael Benitez this week. We’ve got just the job for you…

Matt Stead

Burnley 1-1 Nottm Forest: Postecoglou still winless after calamity from ex-Arsenal man

Nottingham Forest have now failed to win any of their first three games under Ange Postecoglou after blowing the chance to build on an early lead at Burnley.

Arsenal away in Postecoglou’s first game after replacing Nuno Espirito Santo was a free hit for the ex-Spurs boss. Wednesday’s Carabao Cup defeat at Swansea City, however, was a complete disaster, and failing to win at newly-promoted Burnley only adds to the pressure of getting that elusive first victory.

Next up? Real Betis away in the Europa League, which is about as tough as it gets in the league phase, before a Premier League meeting with Sunderland at the City Ground.

Having replaced a very popular manager, Big Ange has a Big Job convincing the Forest fans he’s the man for the job. So far, so bad. Neco Williams’ deflected effort after about 90 seconds got them off to the perfect start at Turf Moor, but a Lyle Foster equaliser in the 20th minute was all she wrote in terms of goals on the day.

Forest were the side pushing hardest for a winner, with Martin Dubravka making some important saves to protect Burnley’s point. But there’s a clear lack of quality and confidence in the final third. New signing Arnaud Kalimuendo hasn’t got going, and Morgan Gibbs-White looks a shadow of his usual self.

When you’re struggling for an attacking spark, the last thing you need is for a defender to chuck one in his own net. Step forward Arsenal loanee Oleksandr Zinchenko, whose slapstick attempt to clear ended with him falling over and taking the ball into his own goal with him. It was a summary of Postecoglou’s first few weeks in charge.

Jason Soutar

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