Premier League winners and losers: Dyche, Guardiola, Amorim, Liverpool and the two manager sackings
A Pep Guardiola resignation is more likely than a revival after Ruben Amorim’s masterclass. It would follow the two most justified sackings in recent memory.
Sean Dyche
The edits of Dyche as a set-piece-loving Bane are frankly unimprovable in idea and execution. Nicolas Jover can keep his university degree, influences from other sports and career path which has taken him to numerous different countries. He merely adopted the dark arts which Dyche mastered at Burnley and Everton.
When catastrophising about Everton’s upcoming fixtures we absolutely were completely guilty of overlooking how Arsenal (a), Chelsea (h), Manchester City (a), Nottingham Forest (h), Bournemouth (a), Aston Villa (h), Tottenham (h) and Brighton (a) actually suits their manager. The Toffees do not face a team in the current bottom half again until February and Dyche would not have it any other way. An eight-week diet of low blocks and corners is his idea of bliss.
There will be bumps along that road because almost two months of facing six times more shots than you take is unsustainable, but the odd points and shock wins Everton pick up in that time will be no real surprise.
Nor, crucially, will they confound the critics. A 0-0 draw away at Arsenal is part and parcel of the Dyche handshake. It changes nothing and only further embeds the established schools of thought on either side. The problem has long been performances, results and approach against lesser teams, but for a while those complaints will be rendered irrelevant.
Ashley Young
An England international right-back ageing gracefully and unproblematically well into his 30s? It’s a Christmas miracle.
Liverpool
Even when they drop points they gain more momentum.
The Fulham draw crystallised an imminent and uncomfortable decision to be made on Andy Robertson – and quite unnecessarily confirmed that Cody Gakpo is not an option there moving forward – but the overall performance galvanised a Liverpool side which had lost its way somewhat, with the wider context of the weekend in which it came an added bonus.
Chelsea still do not quite fit into the equation but Arsenal look uninspiring and Manchester City are broken. Both sides have struggled against an excellent Fulham this season yet Liverpool largely controlled proceedings even with an early man disadvantage.
Arne Slot initially tinkered holding off on making substitutions until the end, when he brought on the players who combined for the second equaliser.
The way Liverpool started hinted at a continuation of the struggles against Newcastle and Girona, which themselves followed the euphoria of strolling past Real Madrid and Manchester City; the finish against Fulham suggested they had moved past that brief crisis of confidence.
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Cameron Burgess
“We put in 95 per cent of a really good performance and then there’s moments in the game we know we can be better on. We have to use that as fuel going into the next game,” Burgess said after the agonising Bournemouth defeat.
A week later, that extra 5% and those “fine margins” fell Ipswich’s way against Wolves and precious little was different. They took an early lead in both games, were pegged back by an equaliser late in the second half and saw the result decided by an injury-time winner. It is only natural for that equation to produce a loss and then a win.
The performances of Burgess were perhaps the biggest common denominator. In both matches he was a colossus who led by obstinate and consummate example, but as he himself said after the Bournemouth defeat: “It’s not as nice a feeling when you don’t top it off with three points.”
Nuno Espirito Santo
Only three Premier League goals scored by his substitutes this season – just five managers can beat that tally, mind – but each have been vital.
Callum Hudson-Odoi scored the winner in what might remain Nottingham Forest’s most impressive tactical performance of the season at Anfield in September. Ramon Sosa equalised in the draw with Brighton later that month. Anthony Elanga rounded off a sensational comeback victory over Aston Villa.
This is a mightily impressive Forest side, with a manager capable of making the difference when it matters.
Ruben Amorim
It is important to note that this is not a freak occurrence for a Manchester United manager. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Erik ten Hag both dropped certain marquee players and delivered such phenomenal results at times in their reigns; they just stopped doing either nearly often enough.
So it is easy enough to envisage a scenario in which things eventually play out similarly for Ruben Amorim. But it really is difficult not to be impressed by the way he has handled this dumpster fire with clear authority and purpose so far.
The decision to leave Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho out of the matchday squad for such a game was brave. Putting it down to “just a simple selection” and “evaluation” before explaining what he takes into account when picking his team was bold. Explicitly avoiding the temptation to send a “message” was brilliant. He has no interest in indulging in such tabloid frivolities; this was just a decision made in the best interests of the team.
It preceded a breath-taking victory but even in the aftermath Amorim only used it to explain that “we have to improve our standards,” drawing a line between this game and the next and setting a bar which all players must aspire towards each week.
It was commanding man-management combined with excellent coaching before, during and after the game. The headlines will run wild but outside of stemming those dressing-room leaks, Amorim will hardly care.
Crystal Palace
The madman has done it again. Oliver Glasner inspired Champions League-worthy form from relegation-battling Crystal Palace at the end of last season and again midway through this: only Chelsea (20), Liverpool (15) and Forest (15) have accrued more points across the last eight Premier League games than the Eagles (13).
It has not been an easy run either. Battling wins over Tottenham and Ipswich set up a glorious victory over bitter rivals Brighton in Glasner’s energetic, high-pressing image. Aston Villa, Newcastle and Manchester City are far from their best but brilliance and basics are still required to bridge that in-built gulf in resources to take a point off each of them.
After a dreadful start, Palace are up and running. The Eddie Nketiah situation is a grey lining to this silver cloud but even then he can beat Lewis Dunk in the air so it could be worse.
Newcastle
There remains a maddening inconsistency summed up by a pulsating, energy-shifting 3-3 draw being followed by first shipping four goals in a disappointing defeat, then scoring four in a swaggering win.
Eddie Howe could not have hoped to solve Newcastle’s problems in a home game with Leicester, but he absolutely could have added to them. This was a necessary sidestep of a possible obstacle. A victory was both bare minimum and absolute maximum.
Jacob Murphy suddenly flying into joint-second for combined goals and assists behind Alexander Isak this season with a couple of crosses at Brentford and two strikes against Leicester is nice, while helpfully summing up part of the issue; he should not be the first-choice right-winger for a team with European aspirations.
Enzo Maresca
“Noni can do much more. He can do much more. The moment he starts to score or assist and is happy, he starts to drop a little bit and the reason why he was not playing is because I do not like the way he trained. He has to understand that he has to train every day good. He has to be ambitious. He scored one tonight, he has to go for the second one and the third one. He has to give more assists” – Maresca on Madueke after he scored and assisted against Southampton.
Madueke then plays four minutes in the Spurs win, misses out on the Conference League matchday squad against Astana and is brought back for the Brentford game, in which one of his in-swinging crosses finally results in a goal and his manager praises a “top” performance for “the way he worked off the ball, the way he sacrificed, the ways he fought off the ball”.
Chelsea have a squad which responds healthily to constructive manager criticism. It’s not right.
Jorge Cuenca
Ah, the Tomas Kalas special. There was something slightly less performative about Marco Silva calling on his £6.7m summer signing with alternative options limited than there was Jose Mourinho giving a 20-year-old centre-half his full Premier League debut at Anfield a decade before, but the result was similar: an accomplished performance in adverse circumstances.
Cuenca barely put a foot wrong next to Issa Diop, as a gargantuan 12 clearances suggests. Antonee Robinson continues to attract the spotlight at Fulham, and deservedly so, but the Cottagers have unearthed a possible gem to his right.
Spurs
The Prophecy dictated a shoddy 1-0 defeat or comprehensive victory with nothing in between so that tracks.
Absolutely nothing new to learn about Spurs from St Mary’s, but fair play to Djed Spence and Lucas Bergvall for helping show up Timo Werner before they both presumably get sent off against Liverpool at the weekend.
Premier League losers
Manchester City
Back to those post-Spurs thrashing thoughts we go:
‘The predisposition is certainly just to assume that Guardiola will come up with some scheme to reboot his machine ahead of a trademark unbeaten run. Manchester City hibernate through much of August through to December before embarking on a hunt from January onwards. It’s what they do. It works every time.
‘Except this feels different. Guardiola’s Manchester City have lost games before but rarely have they been beaten and made to look so amateurish. This is a vulnerable collection of players trying to remember what and how to do what came so natural and mechanical to them before.’
Three weeks later, Pep Guardiola told his players to “get the confidence back for the simple things by making “a thousand, million passes” to help us to be who we are”.
‘And while the temptation is to assume it cannot get worse, the fixture list suggests otherwise.
‘Feyenoord should be handled easily enough in midweek but Arne Slot could exact immediate revenge at Anfield on Sunday. Then Nottingham Forest and Crystal Palace represent banana skins that much stronger Manchester City sides have slipped on in recent years, while Manchester United and Aston Villa are tough fixtures even with neither team currently at their best.’
Two draws, two defeats and a solitary win back that up; there are no gimmes for Manchester City anymore.
‘When a home game against Everton on Boxing Day starts to look hazardous and mildly panic-inducing, something has gone dreadfully wrong. Guardiola was still playing when Manchester City last lost five games in a row before this run; this is territory so unfamiliar for the manager, coaches and squad that any opponent should face them without any semblance of fear and assumptions of recovery based on the past must be disregarded.’
Yet still, pundits are paid to tell us that ‘Guardiola will sort this out’ and ‘Pep will find the answer’ without any explanation as to how. The reality is that he has faced nothing even vaguely resembling a crisis of results, performances and confidence like this in his entire professional career and neither he nor his players seem equipped to handle or reverse it.
This will not simply blow over and fix itself. These players have proven incapable of taking the initiative to try and help and by Guardiola’s own admission he is “not good enough”. A resignation looks likelier than a turnaround. It’s not even that close.
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Russell Martin
The thing with Vincent Kompany at Burnley is that a) it did work on occasion, and b) he was not so steadfastly, offensively tied to his playing philosophy that he refused to countenance change or accept responsibility.
Burnley won some games for a start. Not many, but certainly enough to maintain hope through to the bitter end. And there was a semblance of pragmatism which broke through, particularly across that eight-game stretch in March and April when they lost just once because they focused more on defensive solidity over possession.
Kompany was still laughably overpromoted to the Bayern Munich job, but as a distant fourth or fifth choice when other candidates dropped out. Martin will be praying for some sort of managerial apocalypse if he plans to follow suit.
His steadfast refusal to adapt has only compounded existing problems. It is easy to ignore the concept of coaching experience at this level and to decry critics who scoff at those who don’t know Our League and the way to do things in a relegation battle, but they clearly hold some value and the last manager who felt so out of his depth yet utterly convinced of his own brilliance in the English top flight was Nathan Jones.
That inspires little confidence that Southampton can crack a ceiling they imposed above themselves when sacking Ralph Hasenhuttl with their next appointment. Their Premier League transfers since have been almost unfailingly atrocious and it is showing.
Gabriel Martinelli
There are wider points to be made about Arsenal’s perceived overreliance on set-pieces and the Martin Odegaard substitution which seemed to entirely shatter their momentum, but the Martinelli problem feels awkward and unavoidable.
It is not helped by the production levels of Bukayo Saka on the opposite side, and the inconsistency of selection at left-back should be taken into account as player relationships are key and Martinelli has not yet been able to establish one with Jurrien Timber, Riccardo Calafiori or Myles Lewis-Skelly for a variety of reasons.
But ultimately it seems to come down to confidence, which only makes his Everton performance more damaging. An hour and 13 minutes of fruitless toil against a 39-year-old Ashley Young is not good for the soul. Six take-ons attempted and none completed is just sad.
For all the endless talk of Arsenal needing a Proper Striker, better wide options feel like a cheaper and more attainable fix which do not impact the foundations of what Mikel Arteta is trying to do. He cannot be forgiven for making Chelsea look like geniuses over Raheem Sterling.
Gary O’Neil
It turns out that Wolves were only “united in supporting” O’Neil up until they weren’t. While Jeff Shi’s vote of post-West Ham confidence always felt like a hollow and foreboding classic of the genre, three days and one game was a particularly quick turnaround for the curse to take effect.
The mistake was not in acting now but holding out so long. O’Neil is a nice bloke and talented coach but three wins in 26 league games, two against relegated or promoted clubs, across two seasons is unsustainable. Only two clubs have ever conceded more goals at this stage of a Premier League season (Barnsley in 1997/98 and Sheffield United last campaign) and both inevitably went down. They have as many Premier League points in 2024 as Leicester and Burnley combined in as many matches. Different players have embarrassed themselves with individual shows of petulance and temper in successive games.
It doesn’t feel like a new manager fixes the fundamental issues at Molineux but something absolutely had to change.
O’Neil’s last two post-match interviews were telling. He turned the focus on Fosun after the West Ham defeat, laying out the flaws in their transfer strategy, then largely absolved himself of responsibility and said he can only do so much to “help the group” following the Ipswich debacle.
Perhaps O’Neil will learn from his mistakes and ensure the environment and conditions in his next post are more conducive to coaching stability; he could hardly have chosen two more sub-optimal first jobs in the Premier League.
But for Wolves this is a sorry indictment of a club which lost its way long ago. The four-year contract handed down to the manager and his team always seemed idealistic and hopeful, the squad has been meticulously weakened in the market and the lurch back to Jorge Mendes’ pocket is depressing.
Brighton
Last season, St Pauli drew and lost the two 2. Bundesliga games in which they had 70% possession or more, winning three and drawing the other of which they had less than half of the ball.
This campaign, Brighton have won just one of the seven Premier League matches in which they have had more than 55% possession – the opening game against Everton – while losing only one of the eight Premier League fixtures in which they have had less than half of the ball.
The blueprint for playing against Fabian Hurzeler’s teams has been established.
Danny Ward
In his last 1,215 minutes against Premier League opposition Ward has conceded 31 goals – or one every 39 minutes. He and Leicester will have taken that rate against Newcastle.
The West Ham and Brighton games were fun but Ruud van Nistelrooy’s first away match as a manager in England was disastrous. A midfield two of Hamza Choudhury and Oliver Skipp is begging to be torn apart, Conor Coady is not of the requisite standard and Ricardo Pereira is a better full-back option than the current starters on either side.
But ultimately, conceding 74 shots in the manager’s first three games is not a great sign despite the respectable haul of four points. If it takes Mads Hermansen’s absence to force a change in approach from one that highlights the keeper rather than protects them, that might not necessarily be a bad thing.
Aston Villa
Unai Emery might well disagree, saying “the Champions League is different, it’s completely different – another competition,” while pointing out that “last year, we played in the Europa Conference League and we got fourth”.
But Aston Villa’s mixed form in Premier League matches directly after Conference League games last season – seven wins, four draws and three defeats – has become an unavoidable problem with the Champions League upgrade.
Villa beat Wolves four days after their winning debut on Europe’s biggest stage in September, but have drawn two and lost three of their games immediately after Champions League fixtures since. It surely cannot be a coincidence.
Brentford
On course to equal the records for both most home points (55, Brentford currently 22 from 24) and fewest away points (3, Brentford currently 1 from 24) in a Premier League season.
Kyle Walker
These are Alexis Sanchez levels of fall from grace.
