Premier League winners and losers: underdogs Liverpool, hopeless Villa, Potter, Nuno, Hurzeler and more…
Liverpool were showing off with a scrappy title race win. Potter, Hurzeler, Glasner and Iraola impressed but Aston Villa and Wolves are in freefall.
The only perfect record in the Premier League heading into the first international break belongs to the champions, with just two other sides remaining unbeaten.
One team is holding up the Premier League table on zero points but their mood might not even be the worst in the local area.
Premier League winners
Fulham
A frustrating afternoon, no doubt. Always good to build a healthy sense of refereeing injustice before the first month of the season is out, though. And the lucky sods get an open dialogue with Howard Webb.
Liverpool
There was a curious internal and external move to try and label Arsenal as the title favourites heading into the game at Anfield, which manifested itself in a sort of underdog portrayal of the actual champions who are about to become the first club to ever spend more than £400m in a single transfer window.
Mo Salah reiterated that they “have a team that has played for five, six years, they understand each other’s game and they also have a manager with the team for five, six years”.
But if Liverpool need to imagine they are the valiant pretenders in this almighty title battle then they should feel free. Perhaps it gave them the level-headedness and clarity to see the game through.
Their previous 1-0 wins under Arne Slot had come against Leicester, Everton and Crystal Palace. Not since Salah scored in a narrow victory over Manchester City in October 2022 had Liverpool beaten a Big Six opponent by that scoreline. It was a welcome show of variation from the new entertainers.
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Graham Potter
The West Ham manager pretended that “you get written off in your job after a week” because “this is the world we’re in”, as if West Ham hadn’t taken the joint-fewest points of any side who had been in the Premier League throughout his eight-month tenure and he was only under pressure because woke.
But he earned the opportunity to give some back after what felt like a transformational afternoon out of nowhere.
Their best and most committed player by a ludicrous margin was left arguing with a supporter days before after a third consecutive defeat to start the season, all of which had seen the Hammer concede three goals.
Then came news of Lucas Paqueta’s seemingly imminent departure, a blow softened by the boost that Nayef Aguerd had refused to travel to the Midlands.
Heading into the international break void away at a team which had started with a win and a draw after spending over £160m this season, it was seemingly designed specifically to be Potter’s final stand.
Yet Bowen scored as he tends to, Paqueta did the same before mugging off Fabrizio Romano, and Callum Wilson earned a presumably ungodly goal bonus while Crysencio Summerville emerged as a genuine game-changer, Mateus Fernandes showed that midfielders can have mobility and Kyle Walker-Peters actually defended his back post.
Potter’s switch to a four-man defence helped change the mood completely. That was his biggest win in any game since October 2022, and equalled his best ever away in the Premier League. The critics are far from silenced but he will welcome them at least having to mutter under their breath for a while.
Fabian Hurzeler
While no different to any other manager in that there is a perception among the fanbase that his substitutions are often either wrong or timed poorly, the difference with Hurzeler is that he has a uniquely strong hand to shuffle as a coach outside the elite.
“For me it’s important to have the courage to make the decisions and not wait until something happens, because making the decisions with substitutions you can change the game,” he said after turning a 0-0 draw with Ipswich into a 2-0 win in January, which some might argue is roughly the same as conjuring victory from a defeat to Manchester City.
There is definite outcome bias at play; if Brighton had been hit on the break, conceded again and slumped to a loss after that quadruple substitution then Hurzeler would be slammed for his naivety and foolishness. But he sensed a shift in the game with neither side having had a shot for 15 minutes and acted upon it.
Brighton had the next four attempts including James Milner’s penalty equaliser, then weathered a mild two-shot storm in response from the visitors before having seven unanswered efforts on goal, culminating with Brajan Gruda’s winner.
Two substitutes scoring after being introduced at 1-0 down, while Pep Guardiola chucked on Rico Lewis and Ruben Dias to try and salvage a point. As Hurzeler said, it was all about “energy” and “belief”. Rarely do you see either transfer between teams during a game so dramatically.
Crystal Palace
A top-flight club-record unbeaten run, with the first Thursday-Sunday away grind of the season navigated without conceding a goal, having sold their best player while manoeuvring through continued speculation over their captain and being unable to name anything close to a full bench because of injuries and a lack of squad depth.
Oliver Glasner is a magician and these are uncharted waters Crystal Palace are plainly sailing on.
He must be backed over Marc Guehi. As Glasner said, it’s “tempting” to take the money for a player out of contract at the end of the season, but it feels as though Palace are on the brink of something special and there is a danger of jeopardising that by valuing the financial aspect of a deal too highly.
If keeping Guehi gives them a better chance of renewing Glasner’s own terms before they expire next summer, it is entirely worth taking that hit. Glasner is “responsible for sports” and there is no-one better pound-for-pound in the Premier League, if not across the European coaching landscape as a whole.
Andoni Iraola
Mind you…
Bournemouth sold three-quarters of their starting defence in the summer and had their loan keeper return to his parent club. They have the lowest net spend of any team in Europe this summer by some way. Their 10 most recent first-team signings all had limited to no Premier League experience when they joined.
Their most-used XI last season and the line-up which so thoroughly beat Spurs on their own patch shared three players: Adam Smith, Antoine Semenyo and Evanilson. And they appear to be better, more cohesive and more stable than last season.
Iraola does feel eventually destined for something greater but only to the sort of level Bournemouth’s biggest player sales have been to this summer: your Real Madrids, your Paris Saint-Germains, your Liverpools, your Brentfords.
Amine Adli personally hunting down the entire Spurs backline and midfield to retrieve a ball he didn’t even lose before getting his head down to sprint on a counter-attack, all in stoppage time away at a Champions League side, was emblematic of a team few can match physically or technically.
It is ridiculous how high that Bournemouth ceiling is both collectively and as individuals.
Everton
The results undoubtedly help but there is an overriding sense that Everton are just enjoying having actual fun.
They have scored 34 goals in 24 matches under David Moyes at a rate of 1.42 per game, compared to the 1.19 managed by Sean Dyche.
There have been zero goalless draws under Moyes, whereas Dyche had five in his last 13 fixtures.
In only six games under Moyes have Everton failed to score, with Dyche sacked after a miserable run of ten matches in which the Toffees drew a blank eight times.
One of those managers did have a Jack Grealish able to thrive again as the big fish in a smaller pond, as well as Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall to help facilitate that. But that coach did also revitalise Beto while coaxing twice as many goals out of Iliman Ndiaye in 420 fewer minutes, so…
Sunderland
It is a neat inverse of the recent promoted team archetype to beat sides established in the Premier League while losing to those you came up with.
Sunderland would probably take a couple of chastening setbacks against Burnley and Leeds if they were routinely sandwiched between the sort of results they have to deliver against precisely the kind of club they should be looking to replace in the top flight.
West Ham and Brentford are among that vulnerable subsect of teams which have been systematically weakened by the elite this summer. These games might not have explicitly carried the six-pointer label in the build-up but they will be imbued with no less importance if the tag is added retrospectively in discussing how they stayed up.
Pulling those entrenched sides into trouble is the difficult part. In the last two seasons, the most wins a promoted team has recorded against non-promoted clubs was Luton with five in 2023/24, and none of the last six teams who came up ever recorded consecutive victories at home before their relegation was confirmed.
Sunderland at least look well-equipped to make it interesting.
Chelsea
A timely reminder, in spite of their apparent discovery of competence on the pitch, that they remain a delightful ball of insanity off it.
One two-month injury to a rotated centre-forward should not prompt the cancelling of a loan to Bayern Munich and the recall of a striker from Sunderland while prompting speculation over another transfer.
Spend the money on the appropriate substance required to wrap up Joao Pedro and maintain his safety. Brighton have probably found some in South America which works wonders.
READ MORE: Chelsea stoop to Arsenal level in scarcely deserved victory over Fulham
Bruno Fernandes
Is he “captain material”? What is someone who picks weird fights with Lyle Foster and misses or scores crucial penalties week by week actually made of and can it go in the tumble dryer?
Fernandes is the perfect symbol of this particular half-decade of Manchester United ridiculousness either way. He should obviously have been sold for £100m to Saudi this summer, while also evidently being unsellable.
He is not a leader but also shoulders the responsibility of his manager and coaching staff’s continued employment when needed in stoppage time.
He has no natural place in the system but it also cannot hope to function without him. What a hilariously stupid situation to sum up the latest turned corner into what will almost definitely be another dead end in this decade-long maze of absurdity.
Lucas Perri
More clean sheets in his first three Premier League games than Illan Meslier managed in his last 15. The Frenchman kept just five in both of his last two seasons for Leeds so Perri is almost halfway there.
Jaidon Anthony
Only the second player ever to score in consecutive Premier League games under Scott Parker after Ryan Babel. It’s admittedly not the best quiz question.
Premier League losers
Aston Villa
It is difficult to recall a more consequential recent Aston Villa defeat than their loss at Old Trafford on the final day of last season. At least the player largely responsible for the setback which helped cost them Champions League qualification isn’t trying to return to that scene while burning every bridge back to Birmingham he can find.
Yet this cannot be pinned solely on Emi Martinez. His conduct and that situation has not helped but Villa look broken and lost on and off the pitch.
Tyrone Mings calling for the squad “to act as professionally as possible” after the surrender to Crystal Palace felt desperate. The focus on simply surviving the rest of the transfer window, assessing the damage incurred by this team over the summer and moving on seems forlorn.
Half-time substitute Emi Buendia should not be leading your team for tackles, nor should 17-year-old Bradley Burrowes have to be thrown on for his Premier League debut as a simultaneous message to the board and to Matty Cash for continuing to be Matty Cash.
For all the talk of needing new faces to freshen things up, £26m summer signing Evann Guessand only lasted the first half and was still tackled more times than anyone all game.
Morgan Rogers and Ollie Watkins have attracted interest and an internal valuation of around £140m yet Villa are the only team in the entire English football pyramid yet to score a league goal this season.
And adding most of a painfully ordinary Jadon Sancho’s earnings to a disastrous wage-to-revenue ratio does not feel like a happy solution.
The transfer deadline leading into an international break brings a chance to reset and recalibrate. No club needs it more.
Nuno Espirito Santo
Not sure there is ever a particularly good time to lose 3-0 at home to a side previously without a win but the inopportune timing of that Nottingham Forest setback on the eve of a crunch meeting with the volatile owner was not lost on Nuno.
His previous Premier League sacking was brought about by a home defeat by the same scoreline to a hapless United, and meted out by an exacting and unforgiving chairman. Perhaps Nuno should start considering his choices and the consequences of his actions more thoroughly.
Manchester City
It was not even the first time in the last 300 days that Manchester City have lost to Brighton having led, but there is a pattern of carelessness and frailty emerging when Pep Guardiola’s side are in the supposed ascendancy.
They collapsed late on against Manchester United in December, to Sporting and Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League either side of that, against Real Madrid in February and even against Al-Hilal in the Club World Cup.
Guardiola teams rarely lose at all, but the frequency with which they are being beaten in games they have led is freakish.
Wolves
It is almost impressive how insistent Wolves are on tying their own shoelaces together at the start of the marathon sprint that is a Premier League season.
While others at least make a vague effort to prepare for the race ahead, Wolves turn up at the blocks half-dressed and facing backwards.
They essentially write off August every year. Their results in the opening month of every top-flight campaign since promotion in 2018 make for hilariously painful reading: 26 games, two wins, nine draws and 15 defeats.
One of those victories was in lockdown September against an atrocious Sheffield United; the other came two years ago against Everton, who instead sent them into this international break at as low an ebb as is imaginable for a Premier League side.
Wolves handicap themselves so thoroughly each season that it should come as no surprise. A transfer policy predicated on selling their best players and taking time to replace them with inferior ones means the pressure builds, momentum doesn’t and the revolving door of coaches never really stops spinning.
It just feels like there is probably a middle ground between embracing their position in the food chain and meticulously identifying rough diamonds to polish and upsell, and sacrificing the first three or so matches of every season to facilitate that role. Once clubs get lost in that cycle it tends to end only one way.
Brentford
Every aspect of the modern Southampton survival blueprint is to be avoided at all costs and although predominantly playing in the same colour kit cannot be helped, Brentford really could have done without copying their bizarre outlook on penalties.
Cameron Archer had never taken a spot-kick in his 117-game professional career before stepping up at 0-0 against Manchester United last September; that he hasn’t taken one since indicates how well it went.
Ben Brereton Diaz had scored all nine he had taken at senior level by that point, was on the pitch and even assumed ownership of the ball in that transparent new way players do to relieve pressure on the actual taker before handing it over to Archer.
“Cam has practiced a lot over the last two weeks during the international break whilst he’s been here and Ben hasn’t,” was Russell Martin’s irrefutable justification for allowing a fortnight of evidence to override two respective careers’ worth of proof.
Southampton never recovered from Andre Onana’s save and were beaten 3-0.
Kevin Schade had never taken a spot kick in his 114-game professional career before stepping up at 0-0 against Sunderland and an imitation of Ivan Toney so pale it would make Casper The Friendly Ghost look tanned suggested he should never have the opportunity again.
Igor Thiago has scored ten of the 12 he has taken at senior level, including one literally 13 days prior – when Schade was also on the pitch against Nottingham Forest – but was passed over here for a reason hitherto unexplained adequately.
Brentford did later take the lead but ultimately lost control and the game.
“We’ve worked hard during pre-season on identifying penalty takers,” said Keith Andrews before the entirely contradictory addition of “Thiago and Kevin are the designated penalty takers”.
A situation which needs clarity, hierarchy and leadership was unnecessarily muddled and it stung them.
Spurs
The introspection should probably start and end with one Thomas Frank quote:
“Sometimes you need a player who can do something out of nothing. Go past the player, produce a cross, a shot, a pass, with that extra quality that you need on the day. That’s what I think he can bring.”
Spurs have tried and increasingly hilariously failed to fill that creative void left by James Maddison’s injury; Bournemouth exposed and exploited it. For the first time Frank’s adaptive tactics and philosophy did not come close to providing an answer to what they faced.
Arsenal
Losers because they lost. As Arne Slot said, “if we play this game ten times more in the same fashion then I think it’s eight times a draw, we win it one time and Arsenal win it one time”.
And that is fine without pretending it proved Arsenal are bottle merchants who have no hope of winning the title if they can’t rock up to Anfield and saunter out with a victory.
Although Arsenal probably do need to win it that one time Slot mentioned when Liverpool visit the Emirates in January.
Newcastle
It did seem as though Eddie Howe got his words the wrong way round when declaring it was “absolutely massive for us to sign a striker” as 6ft 6ins Nick Woltemade ducked through the door.
But the point stands: while Will Osula makes up for a lack of decisive quality 100 times over with his work rate and self-sacrifice, that is never going to be enough to lead a team already defined by its energy, effort and intensity.
Newcastle need something different, a goal threat which weaves seamlessly with that tone-setting desire and application. And as Howe said, “one more player” even after a club-record transfer is probably necessary with the Alexander Isak saga almost over.
Of course a starting line-up in which Bruno Guimaraes had the most career Premier League goals (22) was held to a 0-0 draw. Jacob Murphy (19) and Fabian Schar (18) completed that depressing podium and leaving out £90m of starting wingers before bringing them on with nothing to aim for did not help.
Newcastle lost as many games as they won when having 60 per cent of the ball or more in the Premier League last season. A pair of goalless draws with a possession share only just under that does not suggest the issue has been sorted over a summer of transfer distraction and disturbance.
Woltemade and Yoane Wissa will be placed into a competent enough structure but the need for them to show what well over £100m can bring beyond that is immediate.
Marco Bizot
Marco Bizot. Marco Bizot. The time is over.
