Premier League winners and losers: Liverpool, West Ham, Parker, Villa, Fulham, Arteta, Guardiola and more…
Liverpool were the big winners a couple of times over, along with Fulham, Parker and Farke. But Potter is gone while Arteta and Guardiola overthought it.
There is also praise for Fulham on a weekend when all three promoted teams highlighted their survival credentials.
But Aston Villa are in about as much claret-shaded trouble as West Ham and Wolves are completely screwed too.
Jose Mourinho
You either die a hero, or live long enough to see your arch-nemesis become the villain while remaining the prime reference for a certain kind of performance well beyond your peak years of relevance.
Liverpool
The only team from the top eight before the weekend – and the only side of the ten who also had a game in midweek – to win. And theirs, a bitter derby against a very good opponent in solid form having had a full uninterrupted week to prepare, was first.
Then they triumphed again without even playing.
There is already an air of inevitability about Liverpool, even if this was their first victory since April without a winner scored earlier than the 83rd minute. It was a different challenge to defend a lead confidently secured within half an hour but one they still passed with relative comfort.
It is unknown when Arne Slot enlisted the combined philosophical expertise of Kevin Keegan and Fat Les but these are almost parodic levels of We’re Gonna Score One More Than You that Liverpool are operating at. And each win has been different; they’ve been dominant, pegged back, out-shot, relatively even and everything in between, with the result the same.
A ludicrous degree of investment in attacking areas should buy that. Yet Liverpool have established a formidable gap already while integrating new players and figuring out kinks in the system. This isn’t even them close to their theoretical best.
Liverpool, again
Three minutes of second-half stoppage time when defending a lead, is it? Would have been at least ten if they were chasing a goal. The red cartel is at it again.
Everton were knocking loudly tapping almost impossibly quietly at the door, having two wildly off-target shots in 32 minutes after Idrissa Gueye’s consolation. PGMOL could at least disguise the conspiracy.
Scott Parker
For just the fourth time in his managerial career, was able to come from behind and claim as much as a point from a top-flight game. It doesn’t sound like particularly emphatic progress but for statistically the worst boss in Premier League history that is genuine and absolute progress.
It is a knack Parker and Burnley will have to develop and harness properly if they are to survive this season. If falling behind does not automatically constitute defeat, that is a substantial step in the right direction.
And especially after they “had to dig and go to places not many humans go to” without reward against Liverpool, this was Parker having his faith in these players, this coaching reinvention and such absurdly exaggerated phrasing repaid handsomely.
But he obviously has a way with words. That is the only possible explanation for how Burnley have managed to sign Florentino Luis, who might well be the ultimate difference in their relegation fight.
Daniel Farke
For the first time in his managerial career, was able to come from behind and claim as much as a point from a top-flight game. That it was ultimately all three, delivered away from home to a relegation rival with ease, is a heartening sign that Farke has learned from his chastening Premier League experiences thus far.
“I think it was crucial that we didn’t dwell on this and didn’t lose the confidence,” he said of the preventable early Wolves goal. “You could sometimes feel sorry for yourself, especially in an away game, after such a heartbreaking final minute in the last game. But we just kept believing in what we wanted to do and in our game plan, our processes.”
Again, if Leeds can learn to roll with the punches they will inevitably sustain in the Premier League and not treat each like a knock-out blow, that is a considerable part of the battle.
Fulham
A wonderful win, but also impeccable management of a promising young player in adversity.
Almost as soon as Josh King’s blind, misplaced pass led to Brentford’s opening goal he had Alex Iwobi provide an arm around the shoulder and some conciliatory words.
When King was then booked on the stroke of half-time after Fulham had recovered to take the lead, the easy call for Marco Silva would have been to take him off to prevent the worst-case scenario unfolding, albeit at great expense to an 18-year-old’s confidence.
But the decision to keep him on was inspired and rewarded. “Tonight will make him grow better,” said an “impressed” Silva of a player who “wanted to ball back in his feet” even after the mistake.
Crystal Palace
A casual 17-game unbeaten run, as you do. Since Oliver Glasner’s appointment in February 2024 only six teams have more Premier League points than Crystal Palace, and just Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City have a better away record.
Sunderland
More proof – and none is really required any longer – that Sunderland are not like most promoted teams.
Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton suffered eight red cards between them last season. Their aggregate score with a man disadvantage was 2-13, with Ipswich’s draw in February away at Villa – funnily enough – the only positive result any of those three teams managed after their red card.
Sunderland’s eight points have come from drastically different performances and game states, fortified by the same fundamentals and the priceless experience of ludicrous signings like Granit Xhaka and Nordi Mukiele. These are early days but they do not look out of place.
Newcastle
The concern over their attacking output is warranted and Eddie Howe was right to point out that “evolving into a different team” may “take a bit of time”.
But Newcastle maintaining their defensive stability while that process continues is to be quietly celebrated. It’s not like they have any goals to cheer about.
Only Manchester United (1997/98), Chelsea (2005/06), Portsmouth (2006/07) and Manchester City (2015/16) have kept more clean sheets in the first five games of a Premier League season. It is something to cling to.
Djordje Petrovic
Leading Chelsea 3-2 in the clean sheet stakes so far this season. Mike Penders also has three on loan at Champions League side Strasbourg.
Richarlison
Tottenham’s record in the five games Richarlison scored in last season: W1 D0 L4.
Tottenham’s record in the two games Richarlison has scored in this season: W1 D1 L0.
It’s progress. He’s not even been booked for removing his shirt in celebration yet either.
Erik ten Hag
He was certainly allowed to throw enough sh*t at the wall at great expense, but that £60m double signing really does seem to have stuck in particular. Noussair Mazraoui and Matthijs de Ligt have been quietly excellent so far this season. The latter might even earn consecutive pre-seasons under the same manager.
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Premier League losers
Enzo Maresca
Still not over how he reacted to an admittedly frustrating and sub-optimal red card by making three substitutions in the first 21 minutes, abandoning any and all concept of attacking and basically just accepting defeat.
West Ham
Since being appointed West Ham manager, Graham Potter has won two games at the London Stadium. In consecutive weeks, Thomas Frank and Oliver Glasner have joined him in a hilariously damning group.
Yet another defeat to Crystal Palace, a club over whom they have numerous in-built advantages yet have lost five of their last seven meetings to, ought to be the end.
Managers rarely if ever truly recover from “You don’t know what you’re doing” and “You’re getting sacked in the morning” chants from their own supporters; the substitution of Mateus Fernandes for Soungoutou Magassa – and not James Ward-Prowse – was merely the breaking point the inside stories of his inevitable sacking needed.
But the suggestion is that West Ham will naturally botch that, giving Potter the Everton and Arsenal games before the international break as they feel it would be too difficult a start for a new coach.
And said coach will be an interim appointment for about 30 games, with the obvious choice being the only manager Potter has beaten this season.
In short, it is an avoidable, predictable, ridiculous mess. That is the history of the West Ham.
Aston Villa
“Everybody can point to different variables as to why it might be,” said Tyrone Mings earlier this month. “But again, it’s for us to stay calm and for us to act as professionally as possible. And the players who want to be here, now’s the time to dig in, stay calm and fight for the badge.”
The last line in particular felt incongruous, capturing the sense of defeatism which has engulfed Aston Villa since last season’s final day, underpinned their entire summer transfer window and bled into this campaign.
Whatever the issues beyond PSR, they have extended from boardrooms to the dressing room and pitch. And Unai Emery, the greatest manager in the club’s history in terms of win percentage, seems incapable of solving them.
His branding of these players as “lazy” and lacking “confidence” and “personality” feels like a crossroads. It goes one of two ways, either sparking a necessary period of collective and individual self-analysis or feeding into what seems to be a sort of victim mentality which has been allowed to fester at Villa Park.
There is an increasing divide between those backing Emery and others who believe him to be the problem and removing him at least part of the solution.
It has been an unfathomable spiral from that potentially transformative week in April when Southampton, Paris Saint-Germain and Newcastle were all dispatched to the tune of ten goals. An inability to pinpoint any one broken thing is not helping, and the worst may well be yet to come.
Mikel Arteta and Pep Guardiola
They do appear to know each other almost too well, Clive. And perhaps it should come as no surprise that the king of overthinking has imprinted some of those ideals onto his finest student.
The stakes in these games are high and the reaction to the results and performances so ubiquitous that both managers did seem consumed by the consequences of a potential defeat rather than the advantages of a possible victory.
Arteta forced Guardiola into a historically low amount of possession and became the first manager to ever go five league games unbeaten against the Spaniard.
Guardiola compelled Arteta to pick a starting line-up focused more on stifling a relatively weak opposition at an inevitable cost to Arsenal’s own attacking strengths, as underlined by the Gunners’ two half-time changes.
Neither manager really needed to react how they did to the perceived obstacles they faced, but the pressure of a heavy summer of investment already manifesting in an imposing gap to the leaders is bound to tell.
Rodri
Wolves
There is something to be commended in Wolves going against the grain and extending their manager’s contract after starting the season with four consecutive defeats, having ended the last with three losses and a draw.
But when that attempt to manufacture positivity manifests itself in a home defeat to a relegation rival having led from the eighth minute, it only feels like Wolves and Vitor Pereira are trying to convince themselves this could work.
Jeff Shi extolled the virtues of “stability” and giving Pereira “time to work with the squad, to build a chemistry with new players”, but Marie Curie and Dmitri Mendeleev would struggle on that front as co-managers.
A mere glance at that Wolves starting line-up is enough to conclude they do not have nearly enough of the requisite quality or experience. Sa; Agbadou, Mosquera, T. Gomes; Tchatchoua, J. Gomes, Krejci, R. Gomes; Lopez, Bellegarde; Arokodare is just a collection of random letters with no semblance of cohesion or identity.
Only five clubs have ever started a Premier League campaign with as many defeats in a row; this feels even beyond Roy Hodgson wandering around Molineux screaming about two banks of four.
Carlos Baleba
With the exception of Alexis Mac Allister, who has had an injury and truncated pre-season to manage, only one player has started four Premier League games so far this season and been used for as few minutes as Baleba.
It might actually be a decent consolation to keep such company with Casemiro, but the player Manchester United identified as the Brazilian’s £100m successor is hardly taking advantage of the continued midfield mess at Old Trafford.
Baleba has now been substituted at half-time in two of those starts, while being taken off in the quadruple substitution which triggered that exceptional win over Manchester City.
Against Spurs it was he who surrendered possession in the build-up to the first goal and while Fabian Hurzeler ought to engage in a little more introspection when it comes to carelessly dropping points when leading at home, the manager was right in his assessment of Baleba: he’s “not a machine” and it’s Brighton’s “responsibility” to help him.
Brentford
An inability to see out games has been a consistent issue for Brentford these past couple of seasons. No team dropped more points from winning positions than their 30 in 2023/24, and last season only four had a worse record when ahead.
This season has seen Brentford already drop as many points from winning positions (eight) as in the entirety of their first campaign in the Premier League. What was once a key strength has become a glaring weakness.
And the problem with appointing a continuity candidate with no prior senior management experience is that they will struggle to change those aspects of a club’s identity. Indeed, the nature of his promotion only encouraged Brentford to maintain rather than evolve.
In the face of adversity these players will lean into the long throws, the set-pieces and back fives because it’s what they know. But there remains doubt as to whether Andrews has the tactical acumen to override that muscle memory and imprint his own style.
David Moyes
That is 58 visits to Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester United in the Premier League without a single win, obviously only propagated by Everton having just three extra minutes in which they could at no point look like scoring.
It is honestly a remarkable achievement. Jesse Marsch, Ian Holloway and Mick McCarthy have all won at Anfield – and they aren’t even in the top five such cases which should embarrass Moyes the most.
Ange Postecoglou
Winless in his last ten domestic games, with those European escapades in between pretty much the entire justification behind him landing a job which could not have been more plum if it came with its own candlestick and billiard room.
Postecoglou is at least under no illusions of the need to deliver the sort of immediate results which have eluded him in his first three games, even when trying to accomplish the Brendan Rodgers holy grail of trying to dismantle and rebuild an aircraft in a completely new way while it is somehow still flying and being backseat-piloted by a large angry Greek billionaire.
And nine times out of ten that performance would have been good enough for a win. But it does not take a vivid imagination to see how games against Real Betis, Sunderland, Midtjylland, Newcastle, Chelsea, Porto and Bournemouth cause things to suddenly spiral before November.
