Premier League winners and losers: Marmoush, Nwaneri, Amorim, Palmer, Villa

Manchester City have broken their over-reliance on Erling Haaland and Ange Postecoglou has some respite – but what is the point of Ruben Amorim, Leicester or Raheem Sterling?

Premier League winners

Omar Marmoush and Manchester City’s returning goalscorer variety
Omar Marmoush completed his first senior hat-trick 33 minutes into a 4-0 win over Newcastle, and is unlikely to score an easier one.

The first was a well-taken lob off a simple (if precise) ball over the top from Ederson; the second was a nice run picked out by Ilkay Gundogan, deflected into the bottom corner; the third was a straight finish off a cutback from Savinho on the byline.

Getting that return out of one of their big January signings is good news in itself for City, but Marmoush’s contribution is just part of a bigger picture that they will be hoping can help them hold onto their place in the top four from here.

Until the turn of the new year, City had suffered from the opposite problem to Arsenal: they were getting tonnes of goals from their iconic centre-forward, but not enough from the rest of the squad.

In City’s first 19 games of the Premier League season, Erling Haaland scored 44% of their goals. The Norwegian got 14 and the rest of his teammates just 18 between them. Even for a striker as prolific as him, that was a huge rise on last season’s 28% and some way above 2022/23’s 38%.

Fortunately for City, that’s changing now. In 2025, Haaland has still chipped in with five goals in six Premier League games, but his overall contribution has dropped to a healthier and more sustainable 25%. He’s scored five to his teammates’ 14, with one own goal.

Pep Guardiola played down the fears of a Haaland injury after he went off late on with a knee issue, but City breaking their overwhelming dependence on Haaland should stand them in good stead whether he is fit or not.

With the yoke of goalscoring burden now being taken off Haaland’s broad, ox-like shoulders, the striker has even started chipping in with assists. He’s now got two in City’s past three league games, having previously managed one in 11 months.

READ MORE: Man City crush Newcastle in APT Derby as Bournemouth eye Champions League – it’s the 3pm Blackout

Ryan Christie and Bournemouth’s top four hopes
Putting this here just to stick with a theme rather than because Bournemouth necessarily deserve to go in at number two, but one of the impressive things about Andoni Iraoli’s side this season has been that they seem to find a different key protagonist every week. This week was Christie’s turn.

We’re not going to go too mad for anything anyone does against Southampton this season, but: goal, assist, denied a second goal by a brilliant Aaron Ramsdale save that only just got it off the line. Good going.

Just as important to Bournemouth this weekend were the results around them, which went about as well as they could have hoped. One or both of Manchester City or Newcastle were guaranteed to drop points, but Chelsea and Nottingham Forest both losing too was a delightful pair of extra bonuses. With the kindest fixture list in the division ahead of them, we’re sticking by our ‘why the hell can’t they?’.

Ange Postecoglou
The winner of the Premier League’s El Crapico this weekend could breathe a big sigh of relief, and not just because of those blessed three points that keep the headlines away for another few days.

Much as we stand by our stance that Postecoglou’s unbending approach has not helped Spurs through their crisis, the Australian is now finally starting to get some players back who can actually do some of the things he wants his side to do. Having some players who are past the point of anyone actually bothering to accurately count out the candles on their birthday cakes must be a help, too.

His only complaint from the 1-0 win over Manchester United will be that Spurs did not press home their advantage as they should have done, going quiet for a spell after getting that opener before failing to get anything out of dominating the run of play for the first 25 minutes of the second half.

But Tottenham will absolutely take “winning 1-0 instead of 2-0” as their biggest gripe at the moment. Now to avoid the banana skin of a trip to Ipswich on Saturday before heading back into a rather more challenging run of games against Manchester City, Bournemouth, Fulham and Chelsea.

Ethan Nwaneri
The teenager has been entrusted with more and more responsibility this season, and has now swam firmly into the deep end as Arsenal find themselves short on attacking personnel with Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Jesus and Gabriel Martinelli all out injured.

Mikel Merino got the goals to announce himself as a potential option worthy of further examination at centre-forward, but Nwaneri was the real star against Leicester. The Gunners made hard work of getting a result against a desperately struggling side, yet Nwaneri could barely have done more.

The 17 year old eventually got an assist to add to creating the most chances and having the most shots, once skimming the woodwork before later absolutely smashing it.

He’ll need to keep doing it against better opposition than Leicester, but Nwaneri may well be in the process of upgrading himself from ‘hugely promising youngster’ to ‘potentially very special talent’ – and that could be enough to minimise the impact of Mikel Arteta’s personnel issues.

Kaoru Mitoma and all who sail in him
We celebrated almost as heartily as Brighton fans when the Seagulls turned down a pair of Saudi bids for Mitoma’s services, and that sensational goal against Chelsea is exactly why.

At his best, the Japanese international is the single most entertaining player in the Premier League, bar none. Chelsea fans having a pop at Trevoh Chalobah for not dealing with that ball are misguided; it’s simply a fabulous first touch from Mitoma that not a defender in the planet could have anticipated an opponent would actually pull off successfully.

Having responded to that miserable 7-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest with a pair of wins over Chelsea, it’s now on Brighton to show they are capable of doing it against other sides. Their trip to Southampton this weekend does not count.

David Moyes
Everton got out of jail late on against Liverpool, and they got another escape out of Alcaraz at Crystal Palace.

This was the only result of the weekend that went firmly against expected goals, with Crystal Palace pretty well battering the Toffees (a delicacy Glaswegian Moyes would no doubt enjoy) yet falling to a 2-1 defeat.

Amusingly, Everton averaged more shots per game under Sean Dyche than they have under Moyes – but where they were unbelievably lumpy before, the returning Scot has made Everton’s output much more consistent. They have had between 10 and 13 shots on goal in each of their games under Moyes except at Brighton, when they won 1-0 off just two shots on goal.

That makes it 13 points from six games since Moyes returned as Sean Dyche’s replacement, largely because they have just been a lot more clinical: they’ve put away 11 goals from 58 shots under Moyes (18.9% conversion) having hit 13 from 216 efforts under Dyche (6%).

Is that greater consistency of approach helping them, or is it just good luck? Given where they were, Moyes and Evertonians would be forgiven for not giving a shiny one either way at the moment. Their season has been all but saved already just a month into Moyes’ second tenure.

Alex Palmer
Ipswich’s January arrival from West Bromwich Albion made his Premier League debut aged 28 at Villa Park and could barely have done more to help his side take an impressive point despite playing over half the game with ten men.

The aptly-named goalkeeper could do nothing about Ollie Watkins’ equaliser, but was otherwise sensational, saving everything Villa threw at him – including an absolutely wonderful stop to turn away a wicked deflection in injury time.

Sasa Lukic
Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth have captured the attention much more than Fulham, but there is a lot to be said for the job Marco Silva has done this season.

There is nothing accidental about the Cottagers’ solid top-half form. The Portuguese has them rather boringly and efficiently organised, and they now boast the third-best expected goals against record in the division, behind only Liverpool and Arsenal.

Making it all work a lot of the time is Sasa Lukic, who was particularly sensational in midfield against Forest on Saturday afternoon. The Serbian international created six chances, was exceptionally accurate and varied with his passing, and disrupted Forest’s play with the most tackles and interceptions of anyone in a Fulham shirt.

The new and improved Luis Diaz
One of the pleasant surprises of Arne Slot’s first few months in the job, Diaz had gone a bit quiet over the past few weeks as he found himself playing in a Liverpool centre-forward role that has long been more about enabling others than seeking individual glory.

Diogo Jota’s first start since October meant Diaz could finally return to his preferred place on the left of the Liverpool front three, however, and he wasted little time in getting his first goal of 2025 after showing great awareness and determination to get to Toti’s mis-hit clearance first and bundle it into the net.

Diaz then earned Liverpool a penalty with an equally hard-working run to get in on the goalkeeper, and might have got himself another goal if Jota had not taken Ryan Gravenberch’s pass off him on the way to a second penalty that was very rightly overturned on a VAR call.

The Colombian had always been flashy but frustratingly mercurial under Jurgen Klopp, typifying a major issue of the German’s side in his final year or two at Anfield. But since Slot’s arrival, Diaz has offered a far more consistent all-round game and a notably improved work rate that puts him much closer to the previously much-missed pain in the arse Sadio Mane.

Diaz’s contribution here reflected that: nothing he did will appear on any end-of-season highlights reels, but it won Liverpool the game nonetheless.

Matheus Cunha
The Brazilian’s typically stunning strike against Liverpool was his 12th goal of the season, and his seventh against a current top-half side.

It didn’t mean anything on this occasion, but Wolves would already be doomed without Cunha. A big move surely awaits in the summer, regardless what division Wolves are in.

Kevin Schade
Now has six goals in his past eight Premier League starts for Brentford, plus one from the bench during that run to boot. Which is quite good.

Premier League losers

Ruben Amorim
The hilarious shape of the Manchester United bench would normally be presented as a manager making a point to the board about needing players – an incredible situation to be in when the transfer window closed just two weeks ago.

Obviously – bloody obviously – Manchester United’s issues are much, much, much, much bigger than whichever poor sod happens to occupy the dugout at any one time. But so far, Amorim has taken a struggling side and made them even worse.

What are Manchester United trying to do under Amorim? We still don’t actually know. What is his vision for his Manchester United side? We still don’t actually know. Why is Marcus Rashford deemed so hopeless and useless that they absolutely had to shove him out the door at the first opportunity, yet the same could not be said for…well, basically every other player at the club? We still don’t actually know.

United have taken just one more point than Wolves since Amorim took over, and one point fewer than West Ham, who were themselves bad enough to have sacked a manager and replaced him with one who has fared no better so far (more on whom later).  Each of their past two league games, against Crystal Palace and Tottenham, have seen United defeated and leapfrogged in the table by sides having notably disappointing seasons.

Their season was already a write-off when Amorim took over, of course, but he does actually need to do something, at some point, to suggest there is a plan in place to improve things over the longer term. Three months into his tenure, a late win at a then-dreadful Manchester City and a good point at Anfield is a pretty miserable little handful of positives for him to pull out of his pocket as proof of his abilities.

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Leicester City
It was Arsenal, so what else did you expect – but the supporter protests made clear just what a miserable state Leicester are in. Those kinds of protests can sometimes look a bit silly to a neutral, but it’s hard not to feel Leicester’s fans have legitimate grievance.

When we recently crunched the numbers on every Premier League relegation ever, Leicester’s relegation in 2022/23 came in as the third-most precipitous decline of them all. It will come as no comfort that they were beaten only by a Blackburn side who went from title-winners to second tier in just four years and a Leeds side whose drop-off became the term of art for clubs going into an inescapable spiral.

Earlier this season, the club were up on financial charges and faced a potential points deduction that would surely have them already relegated, but the case was dismissed on a technicality: the rules were badly-written enough to have somehow left them under nobody’s jurisdiction after their relegation. A victory for the lawyers, more than anything.

Leicester showed the most promise of the three newly-promoted sides at the start of the season, but that really isn’t saying a lot at all. Having moved to sack Steve Cooper while sitting 16th, Leicester now find themselves 19th. Only Southampton (4) have taken fewer points than Leicester’s seven from 12 since Cooper departed, and as has been well established – and will be reiterated shortly – Saints are historically abysmal.

So yeah. The banners are justified, we reckon.

Newcastle United
‘Have Newcastle joined title race?’, asked BBC Sport 33 days ago. Just the 19 points off the pace now. That’s a ‘no’, we reckon.

For the second time in four games since that risible headline, Newcastle rolled over and allowed themselves to be hit for four by a fellow would-be top-four contender.

Incredibly, that battle is so open that seventh-placed Newcastle remain just three points off the top four (and two off the top five) regardless – but those heavy losses to fellow contenders is a significant drop-off for a side who had previously drawn with Liverpool, City and Bournemouth, and beaten Arsenal and Forest.

With those reverse fixtures against Forest and Liverpool coming up next, it feels like now or never for Eddie Howe’s side to renew that push. If they can’t…well, there’s still the cups, and that’s more significant for Newcastle than it is for most.

READ MORE: How Premier League teams qualify for Champions League and Europa competitions for 25/26

Aston Villa’s defence
Emiliano Martinez has kept all of three Premier League clean sheets this season, and one of them was against Southampton so it doesn’t count. Only the actual bottom three – Ipswich, Leicester and Southampton – have kept fewer clean sheets than Villa.

The Argentine is capable of doing brilliant things that few other goalkeepers, if any, would be able to pull off. But the rest of the time, he can be a very aggravating figure – and the numbers suggest that far from being the best in the world, as FIFA would bafflingly have you believe, Martinez is in fact a below-average Premier League goalkeeper.

Naturally not all of that lands at the goalkeeper’s door; a good goalkeeper behind a bad defence will still struggle for shutouts. Unfortunately for Martinez, he has the third-lowest save percentage rate in the division (better only than Wolves’ Jose Sa and West Ham’s Alphonse Areola of those who have played even semi-regularly) and the fifth-worst performance against expected goals (add Sam Johnstone and Danny Ward to the list).

However you spread the blame, that’s an awful defensive record for a side who came into the season with aspirations of maintaining their Champions League status. They’re not going to, largely because they’re just so damn leaky they even conceded to ten-man Ipswich.

Raheem Sterling
Another 69 minutes in an Arsenal shirt, another almost entirely anonymous performance. This kind of injury crisis is exactly why Arsenal signed Sterling; if he can’t even contribute anything when their options are this thin, what exactly is he for?

The tragedy of Sterling’s decline was of course accentuated by his being so thoroughly upstaged by teenage prodigy Nwaneri. That used to be him, that did.

Cole Palmer
Chelsea’s current crap spell actually began when their talismanic youngster was still scoring, but his descent into poor form certainly hasn’t helped. His early slice wildly off-target against Brighton about summed it up.

Palmer is now without a goal or assist in his past 519 minutes in all competitions, his longest such dry spell since joining the club. Dare we suggest that after playing virtually every minute for over a year now, as well as going to the Euros final with England…he might just be a bit knackered and in need of a rest?

And if that’s the case, was there really any need for him to have played the full 90 minutes in the FA Cup last week, or to have done so again here even when the result was beyond doubt from the 63rd minute?

Paradoxically, with Chelsea short on firepower at the moment, Palmer looks unlikely to get much more of a chance to have the kind of nice little sit down now that might actually be helpful to player and club in the longer run.

Graham Potter and West Ham
Potter is the anti-Moyes, in that their respective six-game Premier League records since taking over last month are the exact inverse of one another: Potter’s West Ham have just one win, one draw and four defeats.

West Ham and Everton had already swapped places before this weekend, and now the Hammers are three points behind their former gaffer. So that summer change has gone well.

Schade’s fourth-minute opener made West Ham the first and only Premier League side to hit double figures for goals conceded in the first ten minutes of games this season; they have been similar fragile in the minutes immediately following half-time. Either someone’s been sticking arsenic in the jaffa cakes, or those players simply aren’t switching on quickly enough after taking to the pitch.

Just to compound matters, West Ham are absolutely dreadful at responding to going a goal down. They join Ipswich and Southampton in being yet to win from behind this season, claiming just four points from losing positions.

Potter needs to find a solution to one of the other of those problems, otherwise his constant talk of being pleased with the progress his ‘group’ are making will wear just as thin at West Ham as it did at Stamford Bridge.

Southampton
Without further comment, because none is required, we present the five worst-ever Premier League sides after 25 games, from bad to worse:

• Huddersfield Town 2018/19: 11 points, goal difference -36
• Sheffield United 2020/21: 11 points, goal difference -33
• Sunderland 2005/06: 10 points, goal difference -28
• Southampton 2024/25: 9 points, goal difference -38
• Derby County 2007/08: 9 points, goal difference -39